July 30, 2024 • 34 mins
Dia seemed to have it all. But the reality of her life was more complicated. Lucy learns that right before Dia went missing, she made a dramatic decision.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Before we get to this episode, I want to let
you know that you can binge the entire season right
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can hear every episode before they're released to the public.
Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the Where's Dear Apple
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(00:41):
Now onto the episode last time on Where's Dear?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I could hear her phone ringing upstairs, but she was
not anywhere in the house.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Julie and I have spent hours and hours and hours
going over every scenario that it could possibly be, and
we came down to the same thing. She didn't leave
ever on a.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Court you know, obviously, when you're the last person, this
always become the suspect.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Two days after Deer disappeared, Keith Harper, the man who
says he was DEA's fiance, drives to New Mexico, and
within a week police in San Juan County obtain a
warrant and search a large, fenced in storage building belonging
to Harper. The cops also search Harper's motor home on
(01:43):
the grounds that it's linked to a missing person or
possible homicide. They remove a section of the driver's seat
and sees it as evidence. Several weeks later, Harper sues
the police to get his RV back. He wins, and
nothing else comes of it as far as I know.
Harper eventually returns to the ranch where he and Diana Fedder,
(02:08):
Deaer's clar friend from Idlewild, have a showdown with DEA's
two kids, Clinton and Krossara. I talked to Clinton about
what went down that day. He's this very tall guy
with dark cropped hair, green eyes, and a bit of
a nervous energy about him, although perhaps that's to be
expected under the circumstances.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
I feel that I have to speak for my mother
because I don't think anybody else really can.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Around a month after DEA's disappearance, Clinton says that he
and his sister drove up to beneath a Vista ranch
with their attorney to take DEA's truck. They didn't want
Harper having it, But that's when Diana stops them in
their tracks. She hands them a piece of paper, a
legal document that has Deer's signature on it.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
She handed us the power of attorney, and the power
of attorney is shockingly broad. If you read it, I
mean it gives the total control over whether or not
to sell or buy anything. I think it even says
even while she's alive.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
In other words, DEA's children can't take the truck, and
they also have to turn over their set of house
keys to Diana and Harper, the keys to DEA's kingdom.
DEA's children had only met Harper and Diana a few
weeks before this encounter. Clinton told me he also had
no idea that Harper was engaged to their mother.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
How did that feel?
Speaker 6 (03:42):
How did that feel? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Strange, I mean just weird that people I didn't know
were in our family home that we spent millions of
dollars building and exerted a lot of effort on designing.
And I had gone up there ever since I was
a little kid, and my mother always said, you know,
she was building it for Grassara and I. And now suddenly,
(04:05):
you know, other people who I suspect had murdered her
are moving in.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Clinton is suspicious of Harper and Diana right off the bat,
even though he has no evidence that proves they had
anything to do with DEA's disappearance. This confrontation sets up
something that will continue to snowball for years, a power
struggle that will become so big it will consume Clinton
and Harper's lives. Clinton versus Harper battling it out over
(04:35):
DEA's estate. The more I've learned about DEA's life, the
more I've wondered. How did someone who had a family
and friends and a supposed fiancee end up with all
these people fighting over her estate? How did this glamorous
blonde go from living in her mountain paradise in a
(04:58):
town called Idlewild to completely disappearing. It's been hard to
understand Dea. I've had to craft a picture of her
through the people she left behind, even if I'm not
quite sure I can totally believe what they're telling me.
It can be a bit of a mind fuck, to
be honest. It feels like I'm looking at Dea through
(05:19):
a prism or a warped pair of glasses that distort everything.
But in this episode, I'm going to tell you about
how Dea ended up on a huge ranch in the
mountains at odds, with her family living with a man
who says they were secretly engaged. I'm Lucy Sheriff, and
(05:42):
this is Where's Dea Episode two, she built her own prism.
It took me a while to track Peggy ken Shlo down,
DEA's younger sister, but I did and eventually met her
(06:06):
at her studio apartment in the San Diego suburbs. Right away,
Peggy seemed like the key to unlocking who Dea used
to be before she got caught up with the idlewild crowd.
Speaker 7 (06:23):
She called me Piggy Puff, and I called her I
think my mom told me I couldn't say Lydia, so
I called her Dia, and that's how she got Dia.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Peggy told me that she and Dea grew up with
their older brother Jim, in a nice house with an
avocado orchard on a patch of land in La Mesa,
a small inland community east of San Diego. Even though
Dea was a middle child, she was the one given
special treatment.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
I remember my dad bought us all pentos the card
and my brother and I got these like stripped down penthos.
But Dia got a two toned pinto that had like
fur like carpet in it, and she even had a radio,
and so she kind of got you know, she got
the perks for being the middle child, and she always said,
I'm the little child, I'm the meat in the sandwich.
(07:11):
That's sitorious.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The family had chickens and dogs, and Dea loved her animals.
Peggy remembers one intense moment in particular that happened after
DIA's dog died.
Speaker 7 (07:24):
She had a dog one time named Coco that got
kipped by a truck, and she went up there and
scraped up its blood and stuff from second and baggy,
and we'll never forget. It was weird, but that she
loved her annals.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Along the way, something changed. Dea became interested in makeup
and fashion and fancy things. In getting out of le
Mesa and leaving that version of Dea behind.
Speaker 7 (07:50):
She was funny, she was hilarious. But didn't she get
this money thing where it was everything everything to her
and it just created a monster.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Peggy is honest about her older sister, unflinchingly honest, to
the point where I felt almost uncomfortable talking this way
about a woman who's not here to speak for herself.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
You know, she enjoyed money, she wanted more.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Enter clem Abrams, a much older real estate developer who
was from the wealthy enclave of La Joya, San Diego.
Dea found him in a listing of Who's Who, basically
this old school way of dating where young single ladies
could find local eligible bachelors.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
We snagged him. D and I did this together back
in Jim's old bedroom. I'll never forget doing this. It's
called Who's Who in San Diego. And I called and
I would like flirt with him, and then I'd give
the phone to her. She would flirt with him, and
it was hilarious. And then they met.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Clem was old money. Deer had struck gold.
Speaker 7 (08:55):
Everybody loved climb. Clem was really down to earth, come,
used to driver and an old El Camino. So not
not if last year, No, no, not, you didn't have
here they have to be.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
In nineteen eighty four, Deer got pregnant with Clinton, and
so Clem and Dea, who was four months pregnant, tied
the knot in front of a hundred guests with a
reception at SeaWorld, although not before signing a prenup on
Clem's insistence. Deer became this socialite in San Diego, and
her siblings saw her less and less until one day
(09:29):
Peggy and her brother Jim, told me she just cut
them out, the only ties she had left to that life.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
In La Mesa.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
I think what she's felt put off by us. We
liked simple things. She wanted grand things, and she had.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Her own family by that point, Clem the husband, and
their two children, Clinton and Chrissara. Clinton says he was
incredibly close to his mum.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Oh as a child, we were best friends. We would
go shopping all the time. She loved a shop, and
she'd take me with her and I'd help her pick
out clothes and such, and she thought I had a
good fashion sans for a male.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
When Clinton was around thirteen, Dea left La Joya. I
moved to Idlewild, to her Benita Vista ranch without Clem,
though he still supported her financially, and over time cracks
began to show in Clinton and DEA's relationship.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
It just wasn't a day to day interaction really, and
so it was, you know, more sporadic. I talked to
her every couple of weeks or see here, you know,
every month, thirteen months or so, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
According to her friends, Dea felt the kids didn't make
an effort to see her, although Clinton says that wasn't
the case. Regardless, Clinton and DEA's relationship did come under
strain when Clem's health began deteriorating.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
I didn't feel like she shared the same degree of concern.
At the time, I thought everybody was being callous because
I was so sensitive to him dying.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Clinton also started to take over Clem's businesses, including the
upkeep of Deer's properties in Idlewild, and he and Deer
disagreed over how to manage them. Clinton is a real
estate guy. He loves land, he loves property. He prides
himself on having good business sense, and he was pushing
(11:32):
Deer to get rid of one of her properties.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
It wasn't really a point of contention, but the interest
rate on it was just horrific, and nobody living there.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
It was a large monthly nut to cover.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I asked Clinton's sister Krissara to do an interview too
several times, but I didn't hear back from her or
her lawyer, so I can't tell you much more about
their relationship. Still, Clinton says their disagreements were never that serious,
and it was his mother who started pulling away, not
him or his sister, and he doesn't know why.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
From the outside looking in, she had the perfect life.
I mean, the best husband.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I mean, my dad was just so gentle and giving,
gave her everything she ever wanted. You know, she had
multiple properties, horses, all the jewelry that she could ever want.
You know, she went antiquing, she traveled the world. I
don't know, I can't explain it, but she did have
(12:32):
a tendency to kind of create her own misery in
a certain certain way.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
But if DEA's life was that perfect, why did she
leave everything behind and moved to this remote mountain ranch.
Maybe her life looked perfect on the outside, but she
must have had her reasons for leaving Lahoya. Dea seemingly
had everything that she'd wanted as a child. She lived
(13:02):
in a glamorous seaside town, so beautiful that it's known
as San Diego's Jewel by the Sea, but she turned
her back on it for the craggy San Jacinto Mountains.
Clinton says she literally locked herself away from the world.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
I would call her paranoid because I always told her that.
I said, you know, you came out here and we
built this beautiful mansion, and it's full of all of
these valuables as she would have doors that locked from
the inside, so you had to have a key to
get out of the house.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
And so I would always kind of say, you know,
you have all.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
These guns, and it's kind of like you built yourself
a little bit of your own prison, like you're you're guarding,
you know, all these treasures up here in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
When I pieced together everyone's different versions of events, I
can see a pattern of estrangement, Dia distancing herself from
those closest to her, and where her family was moving
out of the picture. These other characters, her Idle World Crew, Diana,
and eventually Harper started moving in. That's after the break.
(14:49):
In October of twenty sixteen, when Dea was sixty two
years old, something happened that I think shows just how
isolated she felt. Dea needed major back surgery because she
suffered from lower back pain after falling off a horse
years ago. On the day of the procedure, so Sarah
went with her mother to Script's Memorial Hospital in La Joia.
(15:18):
Not only was the surgery intense, Dea struggled during her recovery.
The doctor's notes described Dea as crying, continuously, lying on
her side and sobbing and saying her pain was an
eighteen out of ten. The doctor recommended seeing a psychologist
for depression. I've looked through the thousand plus pages of
(15:40):
DEA's medical records from that surgery, and reading them was
pretty heartbreaking, the doctor wrote in his notes. Quote discussed
discharge plans and having adequate emotional support for her. She says,
everybody in her family is too busy. I really feel
for Dea here, this woman who is in her sixties
(16:02):
with a family, feels that she is completely utterly alone
in the world. And it's also this pressure moment where
I feel I can almost hear Deer in her own words.
Then there was this other thing, the Deer says happened. Well, wait,
I should make that clear, Harper says, the deer says happened.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I know, it's confusing.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Sometime after Deer got out of surgery, Harper says, Deer
told him this story about Clinton coming to visit her
in the hospital.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
And she talked about how she was thirsty and she
yet if she could get her something to drink. And
she said, you know, I was coming out of them,
of the drugs that they had given me. And she
said you know, I was a little disoriented for a while,
(16:55):
but she said, you know, after I took the drink
and he gave me, I flipped into a very deep calm.
And I was in that coma for nearly two and
a half days so far. He came out and nearly died.
They thought that they were going to lose me. And
she said, I honestly believe that he administered me some
form uh drug that was intended to take my life.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Wow. And did she tell anybody else about that?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Oh? She told the doctor.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
There was nothing in the medical records about this accusation,
but there was this note in her chart. Found her
unresponsive to name and stimuli, unable to wake up, called
no one one, and sent to ED for further evaluation.
I had no luck tracking down dear's doctor to find
(17:50):
out more. I did ask Diana about the story, though.
Was she concerned that Clinton may have tried to poison
her while she was in hospital?
Speaker 4 (17:59):
She was adamant that he did well, that he slipped
her something while she was there.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Of course I asked Clinton about this too.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
What is your response to these accusations that you tried
to poison your mother when she was in hospital.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
It was totally silly and not even worthy of a thought.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Clinton also disagreed with what Dea had told her doctor
that everyone in her family was too busy for her.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
I think, unfortunately, she could be melodramatic. I don't doubt
that the doctor made the assessment that she was depressed
or sad, because I do feel that she had some
sort of mood disorder. But no, my sister and I
am my father visit her in the hospital multiple times,
(18:51):
and we were always more than willing to take care
of her.
Speaker 6 (18:53):
She seldom reached out.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
I mean, she never asked me for help, or I
would have been happy to help her.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Regardless of what actually happened, the surgery seemed to be
a significant turning point in Dea and Clinton's relationationship, whether
she was growing apart from her kids or not she
felt like she was. Dea was in a long period
of recovery from surgery for about two months after being discharged.
(19:25):
During that time, according to court records, she created her
own trust, separate from her husband's. In it, she put
all of her antiques, guns, jewelry, and property, including the
Bonita Vista ranch. Deer was the sole trustee. She was
in charge, she had control. In the trust agreement, she
(19:50):
had her attorney include this line. Trust her leaves nothing
but her love and affection to her son, Clinton Abrams.
In the event of Deer's death, Chris Sarah would become
trustee of the entire estate and in her everything. And
(20:11):
that might have been the end of it, except Dea
wasn't finished making changes to her trust.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
More after the break, Although.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Dea and Clam were still legally married, they lived their
separate lives, and according to Julie Stanford, Dea had an
active love life.
Speaker 7 (20:50):
Do you like cowboys that type?
Speaker 8 (20:52):
Uh, they're mostly pretty boys, you know, and they were useless.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Julie is the third slice to the Dear Diana Julie Pie,
this tight knit trio who'd been such good friends before
Dea disappeared. Julie and Dea had known each other for
you years.
Speaker 7 (21:10):
Basically, when I needed rescuing, she helped me.
Speaker 8 (21:12):
When she needn't rescue me, that helped her, you know,
that kind of thing, that kind of good friendship.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Dea confided her love troubles to Julie. She didn't have
a lot of luck when it came to finding the
right guy.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
She would dig guys that were online, and I told her,
I said, Dia, you did these guys.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I said, don't bring them here.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
You know.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
It's like, don't show these people you met online what
you have.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But that's exactly what Dea did. According to Harper, they
met some time in the spring of twenty sixteen on
a dating site called Farmers Only. Harper told me about
the first time they met face to face. He'd flown
from Colorado to California after months of talking to Dia online.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
She picked me up at the airport. She had Ruby
in the back, her dog, and I looked at her
and she had Hey in her and I said, boy,
you are Patrick girl, aren't you. And she said why
do you at that? And I said, you got hay
in your hair and she laughed and said really. He said,
I fed the animals before I come, but I thought
(22:21):
I'd brushed my hair.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Harper says they spent four blissful days together horseback riding, hiking,
and then the adventure was over. Harper flew back home
to Colorado, but they kept in touch, and then he
decided to come back for another visit, and then another
until the end of twenty sixteen. A couple of months
(22:46):
after Deer's surgery. He says he just moved in for good.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
You know, the ranch was pretty over grown when I
first came in. You could hardly heave the cabin well.
We started pining the place up because you know, her
camp was to use it as they airbnb, and it
just needed to work before it done.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Julie disputes the timeline when Harper moved in, saying it
was more like twenty eighteen. Regardless, when Julie finally met Harper,
she approved. Harper owns land and businesses in Arizona, New Mexico,
and Colorado. He's a soul of the earth kind of guy.
I like the pretty boys Deer usually went for. He
(23:31):
gets his hands dirty.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
Harper knew how to do things, you care things work
around the match, and that was something she needed and
someone to kind of lean on. She was lonely and
that still that's void.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Harper and Deer had something else in common to They
both loved money.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
There was one occasion.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
When Julie and Dea were showing Harper around Julie's place.
Back then, Julie lived in a trailer on a beautiful
property that used to be a cattle ranch.
Speaker 8 (24:08):
When we're so on, Harper the place and took him
down the road and looked, and you just saw dollars.
Speaker 7 (24:14):
He said, well, this place ought to be developed, you know.
Speaker 8 (24:17):
So, you know, he had the thing about money, money,
money all the time.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
There's this stretch of time where I don't really know
what's going on up there.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
At the ranch.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Harper says that after he moved in, they just lived
their lives, traveling around the American West and managing the ranch.
But then something happened that caused a domino effect of events.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
DEA's husband, Clem died.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
She died on December well, two thousand and eight, keen,
and she she said to me, you know, it's Independence Day.
It's the first day that I actually feel free.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
On that very same day, on DEA's Independence Day, she
went back to that trust she created after her surgery,
and she revisited the part that left her entire estate
to her daughter. I've seen this document. I've seen how
over the name Chrissara Abrams. Dea scribbled four or five
(25:26):
lines in black ink. She wrote denied, dated it twelve twelve,
twenty eighteen, and added her initials D A. A. Few
pages later, next to that line which said, quote trust
her leaves nothing but her love and affection to her
son Clinton Abrams, Dea added in her own handwriting, and
(25:49):
daughter Chrysara Abrams. So at this point in time, if
Dea were to suddenly drop dead, her children would get nothing.
All these changes to DEA's trust reflect in real time
changes she wanted, unlike Will's trust impact your life immediately
(26:12):
because they dictate how your assets are managed. In that
same crazy month, December of twenty eighteen, as if enough
hadn't happened already, Harper says he proposed to Dea up
on a hill overlooking the ranch, on a rock formation.
Speaker 9 (26:30):
It was up to the butterfly rock.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
It's up by the waterfall.
Speaker 9 (26:35):
We would get married. The idea was that it would
be in Jackson, Oul, Wyoming, being there's a little church
there that's where we had identified it.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
He says he gave her a gold engagement ring, but
Dia never told anyone they were engaged, at least nobody
I've spoken with, and Harper claims there's a reason for that.
If Dia married Harper, she might lose out on the
financial support provided by Clem's estate.
Speaker 9 (27:06):
When she brought it up her journeys, they said, you're bullish, Dea,
because he is written in there that if you don't marry,
you continue to give benefit. If you marry, you would
find yourself maybe out.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
Of any recourse of get anything. That's the reason we
didn't look forward on it.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Oh, he weren't going to get married.
Speaker 9 (27:32):
We decided not to get married on the advice of
the attorney.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And here comes another domino. Remember there are two trusts
at play, DEA's and Clem's, and after Clem's death, Dear
doesn't just change her own trust, she takes another look
at Clem's. The entire time Deer lived in Idlewild, Clem
(27:59):
was paying the bills. When he was alive, he provided
for her, made sure she had everything she needed. But
now their children were in charge of his trust and
in charge of how much money.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
She was going to get.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
So although Clem had provided for his wife throughout his life,
now that he was dead, the money didn't seem like
it was flowing in Deer's direction.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Like it once was. Here's a good example.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
A couple months after Clem died, a once in a
generation flood hit Idlewild, Harper says it caused intense damage
on the ranch.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
And it took out the bridge, it took up the dam,
and had left cavities everywhere, and when she had at
Clinton if he would help make the repairs, he refused.
He said, you're not If you're eating, that's all you
need for right down.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Harper also told me that in January twenty twenty, the
kids cut Deer off financially. Clinton says this wasn't the
case at all. He says that he sent his mother
plenty of money.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
The shoe was never cut off even for a second.
I did know about the flood. I don't recall being
asked to help. I do recall her discussing it as
a potential reason why she couldn't attend Clem's memorial. And
I said, you got to find a way. This is
your husband's and I'm throwing a nice service. That's about
(29:31):
really the extent.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
You know.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
They loved to try and make it sound as if
we were refusing her money or some such.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Did she make it to your two dad's memorial?
Speaker 6 (29:44):
She did? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Again, we have these two opposing narratives. Whatever the reality
of how much money the kids were sending deer. We
do know that she felt it wasn't anywhere near what
she deserved. To make things more complicated, that was a
change in tax law that affected the amount Dea stood
to gain from Clem's estate. So, as Clem's legal wife,
(30:09):
she was expecting to get around half of his estate
around five million dollars, but after the change she could
potentially be left with nothing zero. So six months after
Clem died, Dea filed a lawsuit against her own children
to modify Clem's trust and invalidate that prenup she'd sign
(30:33):
with him all those years ago. Dea felt the prenup
was unfair and that she'd been pressured into it. She
wanted six point seven million dollars minimum. Dea and the
kid's vollied objections and amendments back and forth through San
Diego Superior Court. The kids did not want to comply
(30:54):
with their mother's demands. Dea was stressed. She texted Diana
about it in April of twenty twenty. I'll tell you
everything that's going on with the kids, Dea texted, it's
anyone's worst, and Diana remembers another comment dm made again
(31:14):
about the kids.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I had already been aware of the different things that
the kids were doing to make her life miserable.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
With the lawsuit.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
And she turned to me and she said, if anything
ever happens to me, Clinton did it.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So we're almost back to that June of twenty twenty,
back to the day when Dea disappeared.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
But there's one.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Other thing I've got to tell you about before we
can close that loop of time.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Remember that Deer.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Had crossed Chrissara out of her trust and had very
specifically noted that Clinton would get nothing. Well, Dea made
one more major move. She changed her tru trust again.
Dea named a new beneficiary, Keith Leslie Harper, and as
(32:21):
an alternate trustee second in command if something happened to
Harper was Diana Fedder. This meant that if anything happened
to Dia, Harper would assume control of her trust and
benefit from her entire estate, all her antiques, bank accounts, jewelry,
and property assets worth potentially millions of dollars. Two weeks
(32:46):
after Dea made this change to her trust, she disappeared.
Coming up on Where's Dear?
Speaker 6 (33:01):
There was a piece of paper that said that she
appeared for her.
Speaker 9 (33:04):
Life he would constantly call me, constantly text me is
the dead?
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Is Dia alive? She stays over and over, over and
over again to me and others that if I disappear
and if my son's doing.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Where's Dear is written and hosted by me Lucy Sheriff.
Our producer is Daphne Chen, editing by Karen Shakerji, Production
assistance from Joey Fish, ground fact checking by Lauren Vespoli.
Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Original score, sound design
(33:58):
and mastering by Echo Shaw's Where's Dea is a co
production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. You can listen to
(34:19):
all of Where's Dear right now ad free by becoming
a Pushkin Plus subscriber fine Pushkin Plus on the Apple
show page for Where's Dear or at pushkin dot fm
slash plus
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Before we get to this episode, I want to let
you know that you can binge the entire season right
now add free by becoming a pushkin Plus subscriber. You
can hear every episode before they're released to the public.
Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the Where's Dear Apple
podcast show page or visit pushkin dot fm slash Plus.
(00:41):
Now onto the episode last time on Where's Dear?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I could hear her phone ringing upstairs, but she was
not anywhere in the house.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Julie and I have spent hours and hours and hours
going over every scenario that it could possibly be, and
we came down to the same thing. She didn't leave
ever on a.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Court you know, obviously, when you're the last person, this
always become the suspect.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Two days after Deer disappeared, Keith Harper, the man who
says he was DEA's fiance, drives to New Mexico, and
within a week police in San Juan County obtain a
warrant and search a large, fenced in storage building belonging
to Harper. The cops also search Harper's motor home on
(01:43):
the grounds that it's linked to a missing person or
possible homicide. They remove a section of the driver's seat
and sees it as evidence. Several weeks later, Harper sues
the police to get his RV back. He wins, and
nothing else comes of it as far as I know.
Harper eventually returns to the ranch where he and Diana Fedder,
(02:08):
Deaer's clar friend from Idlewild, have a showdown with DEA's
two kids, Clinton and Krossara. I talked to Clinton about
what went down that day. He's this very tall guy
with dark cropped hair, green eyes, and a bit of
a nervous energy about him, although perhaps that's to be
expected under the circumstances.
Speaker 5 (02:30):
I feel that I have to speak for my mother
because I don't think anybody else really can.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Around a month after DEA's disappearance, Clinton says that he
and his sister drove up to beneath a Vista ranch
with their attorney to take DEA's truck. They didn't want
Harper having it, But that's when Diana stops them in
their tracks. She hands them a piece of paper, a
legal document that has Deer's signature on it.
Speaker 5 (03:02):
She handed us the power of attorney, and the power
of attorney is shockingly broad. If you read it, I
mean it gives the total control over whether or not
to sell or buy anything. I think it even says
even while she's alive.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
In other words, DEA's children can't take the truck, and
they also have to turn over their set of house
keys to Diana and Harper, the keys to DEA's kingdom.
DEA's children had only met Harper and Diana a few
weeks before this encounter. Clinton told me he also had
no idea that Harper was engaged to their mother.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
How did that feel?
Speaker 6 (03:42):
How did that feel? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (03:45):
Strange, I mean just weird that people I didn't know
were in our family home that we spent millions of
dollars building and exerted a lot of effort on designing.
And I had gone up there ever since I was
a little kid, and my mother always said, you know,
she was building it for Grassara and I. And now suddenly,
(04:05):
you know, other people who I suspect had murdered her
are moving in.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Clinton is suspicious of Harper and Diana right off the bat,
even though he has no evidence that proves they had
anything to do with DEA's disappearance. This confrontation sets up
something that will continue to snowball for years, a power
struggle that will become so big it will consume Clinton
and Harper's lives. Clinton versus Harper battling it out over
(04:35):
DEA's estate. The more I've learned about DEA's life, the
more I've wondered. How did someone who had a family
and friends and a supposed fiancee end up with all
these people fighting over her estate? How did this glamorous
blonde go from living in her mountain paradise in a
(04:58):
town called Idlewild to completely disappearing. It's been hard to
understand Dea. I've had to craft a picture of her
through the people she left behind, even if I'm not
quite sure I can totally believe what they're telling me.
It can be a bit of a mind fuck, to
be honest. It feels like I'm looking at Dea through
(05:19):
a prism or a warped pair of glasses that distort everything.
But in this episode, I'm going to tell you about
how Dea ended up on a huge ranch in the
mountains at odds, with her family living with a man
who says they were secretly engaged. I'm Lucy Sheriff, and
(05:42):
this is Where's Dea Episode two, she built her own prism.
It took me a while to track Peggy ken Shlo down,
DEA's younger sister, but I did and eventually met her
(06:06):
at her studio apartment in the San Diego suburbs. Right away,
Peggy seemed like the key to unlocking who Dea used
to be before she got caught up with the idlewild crowd.
Speaker 7 (06:23):
She called me Piggy Puff, and I called her I
think my mom told me I couldn't say Lydia, so
I called her Dia, and that's how she got Dia.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Peggy told me that she and Dea grew up with
their older brother Jim, in a nice house with an
avocado orchard on a patch of land in La Mesa,
a small inland community east of San Diego. Even though
Dea was a middle child, she was the one given
special treatment.
Speaker 7 (06:49):
I remember my dad bought us all pentos the card
and my brother and I got these like stripped down penthos.
But Dia got a two toned pinto that had like
fur like carpet in it, and she even had a radio,
and so she kind of got you know, she got
the perks for being the middle child, and she always said,
I'm the little child, I'm the meat in the sandwich.
(07:11):
That's sitorious.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
The family had chickens and dogs, and Dea loved her animals.
Peggy remembers one intense moment in particular that happened after
DIA's dog died.
Speaker 7 (07:24):
She had a dog one time named Coco that got
kipped by a truck, and she went up there and
scraped up its blood and stuff from second and baggy,
and we'll never forget. It was weird, but that she
loved her annals.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Along the way, something changed. Dea became interested in makeup
and fashion and fancy things. In getting out of le
Mesa and leaving that version of Dea behind.
Speaker 7 (07:50):
She was funny, she was hilarious. But didn't she get
this money thing where it was everything everything to her
and it just created a monster.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Peggy is honest about her older sister, unflinchingly honest, to
the point where I felt almost uncomfortable talking this way
about a woman who's not here to speak for herself.
Speaker 7 (08:15):
You know, she enjoyed money, she wanted more.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Enter clem Abrams, a much older real estate developer who
was from the wealthy enclave of La Joya, San Diego.
Dea found him in a listing of Who's Who, basically
this old school way of dating where young single ladies
could find local eligible bachelors.
Speaker 7 (08:36):
We snagged him. D and I did this together back
in Jim's old bedroom. I'll never forget doing this. It's
called Who's Who in San Diego. And I called and
I would like flirt with him, and then I'd give
the phone to her. She would flirt with him, and
it was hilarious. And then they met.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Clem was old money. Deer had struck gold.
Speaker 7 (08:55):
Everybody loved climb. Clem was really down to earth, come,
used to driver and an old El Camino. So not
not if last year, No, no, not, you didn't have
here they have to be.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
In nineteen eighty four, Deer got pregnant with Clinton, and
so Clem and Dea, who was four months pregnant, tied
the knot in front of a hundred guests with a
reception at SeaWorld, although not before signing a prenup on
Clem's insistence. Deer became this socialite in San Diego, and
her siblings saw her less and less until one day
(09:29):
Peggy and her brother Jim, told me she just cut
them out, the only ties she had left to that life.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
In La Mesa.
Speaker 7 (09:37):
I think what she's felt put off by us. We
liked simple things. She wanted grand things, and she had.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Her own family by that point, Clem the husband, and
their two children, Clinton and Chrissara. Clinton says he was
incredibly close to his mum.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Oh as a child, we were best friends. We would
go shopping all the time. She loved a shop, and
she'd take me with her and I'd help her pick
out clothes and such, and she thought I had a
good fashion sans for a male.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
When Clinton was around thirteen, Dea left La Joya. I
moved to Idlewild, to her Benita Vista ranch without Clem,
though he still supported her financially, and over time cracks
began to show in Clinton and DEA's relationship.
Speaker 5 (10:30):
It just wasn't a day to day interaction really, and
so it was, you know, more sporadic. I talked to
her every couple of weeks or see here, you know,
every month, thirteen months or so, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
According to her friends, Dea felt the kids didn't make
an effort to see her, although Clinton says that wasn't
the case. Regardless, Clinton and DEA's relationship did come under
strain when Clem's health began deteriorating.
Speaker 5 (10:59):
I didn't feel like she shared the same degree of concern.
At the time, I thought everybody was being callous because
I was so sensitive to him dying.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Clinton also started to take over Clem's businesses, including the
upkeep of Deer's properties in Idlewild, and he and Deer
disagreed over how to manage them. Clinton is a real
estate guy. He loves land, he loves property. He prides
himself on having good business sense, and he was pushing
(11:32):
Deer to get rid of one of her properties.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
It wasn't really a point of contention, but the interest
rate on it was just horrific, and nobody living there.
Speaker 6 (11:43):
It was a large monthly nut to cover.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I asked Clinton's sister Krissara to do an interview too
several times, but I didn't hear back from her or
her lawyer, so I can't tell you much more about
their relationship. Still, Clinton says their disagreements were never that serious,
and it was his mother who started pulling away, not
him or his sister, and he doesn't know why.
Speaker 6 (12:06):
From the outside looking in, she had the perfect life.
I mean, the best husband.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I mean, my dad was just so gentle and giving,
gave her everything she ever wanted. You know, she had
multiple properties, horses, all the jewelry that she could ever want.
You know, she went antiquing, she traveled the world. I
don't know, I can't explain it, but she did have
(12:32):
a tendency to kind of create her own misery in
a certain certain way.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
But if DEA's life was that perfect, why did she
leave everything behind and moved to this remote mountain ranch.
Maybe her life looked perfect on the outside, but she
must have had her reasons for leaving Lahoya. Dea seemingly
had everything that she'd wanted as a child. She lived
(13:02):
in a glamorous seaside town, so beautiful that it's known
as San Diego's Jewel by the Sea, but she turned
her back on it for the craggy San Jacinto Mountains.
Clinton says she literally locked herself away from the world.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
I would call her paranoid because I always told her that.
I said, you know, you came out here and we
built this beautiful mansion, and it's full of all of
these valuables as she would have doors that locked from
the inside, so you had to have a key to
get out of the house.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
And so I would always kind of say, you know,
you have all.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
These guns, and it's kind of like you built yourself
a little bit of your own prison, like you're you're guarding,
you know, all these treasures up here in the mountains.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
When I pieced together everyone's different versions of events, I
can see a pattern of estrangement, Dia distancing herself from
those closest to her, and where her family was moving
out of the picture. These other characters, her Idle World Crew, Diana,
and eventually Harper started moving in. That's after the break.
(14:49):
In October of twenty sixteen, when Dea was sixty two
years old, something happened that I think shows just how
isolated she felt. Dea needed major back surgery because she
suffered from lower back pain after falling off a horse
years ago. On the day of the procedure, so Sarah
went with her mother to Script's Memorial Hospital in La Joia.
(15:18):
Not only was the surgery intense, Dea struggled during her recovery.
The doctor's notes described Dea as crying, continuously, lying on
her side and sobbing and saying her pain was an
eighteen out of ten. The doctor recommended seeing a psychologist
for depression. I've looked through the thousand plus pages of
(15:40):
DEA's medical records from that surgery, and reading them was
pretty heartbreaking, the doctor wrote in his notes. Quote discussed
discharge plans and having adequate emotional support for her. She says,
everybody in her family is too busy. I really feel
for Dea here, this woman who is in her sixties
(16:02):
with a family, feels that she is completely utterly alone
in the world. And it's also this pressure moment where
I feel I can almost hear Deer in her own words.
Then there was this other thing, the Deer says happened. Well, wait,
I should make that clear, Harper says, the deer says happened.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I know, it's confusing.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Sometime after Deer got out of surgery, Harper says, Deer
told him this story about Clinton coming to visit her
in the hospital.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
And she talked about how she was thirsty and she
yet if she could get her something to drink. And
she said, you know, I was coming out of them,
of the drugs that they had given me. And she
said you know, I was a little disoriented for a while,
(16:55):
but she said, you know, after I took the drink
and he gave me, I flipped into a very deep calm.
And I was in that coma for nearly two and
a half days so far. He came out and nearly died.
They thought that they were going to lose me. And
she said, I honestly believe that he administered me some
form uh drug that was intended to take my life.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Wow. And did she tell anybody else about that?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
Oh? She told the doctor.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
There was nothing in the medical records about this accusation,
but there was this note in her chart. Found her
unresponsive to name and stimuli, unable to wake up, called
no one one, and sent to ED for further evaluation.
I had no luck tracking down dear's doctor to find
(17:50):
out more. I did ask Diana about the story, though.
Was she concerned that Clinton may have tried to poison
her while she was in hospital?
Speaker 4 (17:59):
She was adamant that he did well, that he slipped
her something while she was there.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Of course I asked Clinton about this too.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
What is your response to these accusations that you tried
to poison your mother when she was in hospital.
Speaker 6 (18:19):
It was totally silly and not even worthy of a thought.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Clinton also disagreed with what Dea had told her doctor
that everyone in her family was too busy for her.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
I think, unfortunately, she could be melodramatic. I don't doubt
that the doctor made the assessment that she was depressed
or sad, because I do feel that she had some
sort of mood disorder. But no, my sister and I
am my father visit her in the hospital multiple times,
(18:51):
and we were always more than willing to take care
of her.
Speaker 6 (18:53):
She seldom reached out.
Speaker 5 (18:56):
I mean, she never asked me for help, or I
would have been happy to help her.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Regardless of what actually happened, the surgery seemed to be
a significant turning point in Dea and Clinton's relationationship, whether
she was growing apart from her kids or not she
felt like she was. Dea was in a long period
of recovery from surgery for about two months after being discharged.
(19:25):
During that time, according to court records, she created her
own trust, separate from her husband's. In it, she put
all of her antiques, guns, jewelry, and property, including the
Bonita Vista ranch. Deer was the sole trustee. She was
in charge, she had control. In the trust agreement, she
(19:50):
had her attorney include this line. Trust her leaves nothing
but her love and affection to her son, Clinton Abrams.
In the event of Deer's death, Chris Sarah would become
trustee of the entire estate and in her everything. And
(20:11):
that might have been the end of it, except Dea
wasn't finished making changes to her trust.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
More after the break, Although.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Dea and Clam were still legally married, they lived their
separate lives, and according to Julie Stanford, Dea had an
active love life.
Speaker 7 (20:50):
Do you like cowboys that type?
Speaker 8 (20:52):
Uh, they're mostly pretty boys, you know, and they were useless.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Julie is the third slice to the Dear Diana Julie Pie,
this tight knit trio who'd been such good friends before
Dea disappeared. Julie and Dea had known each other for
you years.
Speaker 7 (21:10):
Basically, when I needed rescuing, she helped me.
Speaker 8 (21:12):
When she needn't rescue me, that helped her, you know,
that kind of thing, that kind of good friendship.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Dea confided her love troubles to Julie. She didn't have
a lot of luck when it came to finding the
right guy.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
She would dig guys that were online, and I told her,
I said, Dia, you did these guys.
Speaker 6 (21:30):
I said, don't bring them here.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
You know.
Speaker 8 (21:33):
It's like, don't show these people you met online what
you have.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But that's exactly what Dea did. According to Harper, they
met some time in the spring of twenty sixteen on
a dating site called Farmers Only. Harper told me about
the first time they met face to face. He'd flown
from Colorado to California after months of talking to Dia online.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
She picked me up at the airport. She had Ruby
in the back, her dog, and I looked at her
and she had Hey in her and I said, boy,
you are Patrick girl, aren't you. And she said why
do you at that? And I said, you got hay
in your hair and she laughed and said really. He said,
I fed the animals before I come, but I thought
(22:21):
I'd brushed my hair.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Harper says they spent four blissful days together horseback riding, hiking,
and then the adventure was over. Harper flew back home
to Colorado, but they kept in touch, and then he
decided to come back for another visit, and then another
until the end of twenty sixteen. A couple of months
(22:46):
after Deer's surgery. He says he just moved in for good.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
You know, the ranch was pretty over grown when I
first came in. You could hardly heave the cabin well.
We started pining the place up because you know, her
camp was to use it as they airbnb, and it
just needed to work before it done.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Julie disputes the timeline when Harper moved in, saying it
was more like twenty eighteen. Regardless, when Julie finally met Harper,
she approved. Harper owns land and businesses in Arizona, New Mexico,
and Colorado. He's a soul of the earth kind of guy.
I like the pretty boys Deer usually went for. He
(23:31):
gets his hands dirty.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
Harper knew how to do things, you care things work
around the match, and that was something she needed and
someone to kind of lean on. She was lonely and
that still that's void.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Harper and Deer had something else in common to They
both loved money.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
There was one occasion.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
When Julie and Dea were showing Harper around Julie's place.
Back then, Julie lived in a trailer on a beautiful
property that used to be a cattle ranch.
Speaker 8 (24:08):
When we're so on, Harper the place and took him
down the road and looked, and you just saw dollars.
Speaker 7 (24:14):
He said, well, this place ought to be developed, you know.
Speaker 8 (24:17):
So, you know, he had the thing about money, money,
money all the time.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
There's this stretch of time where I don't really know
what's going on up there.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
At the ranch.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Harper says that after he moved in, they just lived
their lives, traveling around the American West and managing the ranch.
But then something happened that caused a domino effect of events.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
DEA's husband, Clem died.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
She died on December well, two thousand and eight, keen,
and she she said to me, you know, it's Independence Day.
It's the first day that I actually feel free.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
On that very same day, on DEA's Independence Day, she
went back to that trust she created after her surgery,
and she revisited the part that left her entire estate
to her daughter. I've seen this document. I've seen how
over the name Chrissara Abrams. Dea scribbled four or five
(25:26):
lines in black ink. She wrote denied, dated it twelve twelve,
twenty eighteen, and added her initials D A. A. Few
pages later, next to that line which said, quote trust
her leaves nothing but her love and affection to her
son Clinton Abrams, Dea added in her own handwriting, and
(25:49):
daughter Chrysara Abrams. So at this point in time, if
Dea were to suddenly drop dead, her children would get nothing.
All these changes to DEA's trust reflect in real time
changes she wanted, unlike Will's trust impact your life immediately
(26:12):
because they dictate how your assets are managed. In that
same crazy month, December of twenty eighteen, as if enough
hadn't happened already, Harper says he proposed to Dea up
on a hill overlooking the ranch, on a rock formation.
Speaker 9 (26:30):
It was up to the butterfly rock.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
It's up by the waterfall.
Speaker 9 (26:35):
We would get married. The idea was that it would
be in Jackson, Oul, Wyoming, being there's a little church
there that's where we had identified it.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
He says he gave her a gold engagement ring, but
Dia never told anyone they were engaged, at least nobody
I've spoken with, and Harper claims there's a reason for that.
If Dia married Harper, she might lose out on the
financial support provided by Clem's estate.
Speaker 9 (27:06):
When she brought it up her journeys, they said, you're bullish, Dea,
because he is written in there that if you don't marry,
you continue to give benefit. If you marry, you would
find yourself maybe out.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
Of any recourse of get anything. That's the reason we
didn't look forward on it.
Speaker 7 (27:29):
Oh, he weren't going to get married.
Speaker 9 (27:32):
We decided not to get married on the advice of
the attorney.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And here comes another domino. Remember there are two trusts
at play, DEA's and Clem's, and after Clem's death, Dear
doesn't just change her own trust, she takes another look
at Clem's. The entire time Deer lived in Idlewild, Clem
(27:59):
was paying the bills. When he was alive, he provided
for her, made sure she had everything she needed. But
now their children were in charge of his trust and
in charge of how much money.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
She was going to get.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
So although Clem had provided for his wife throughout his life,
now that he was dead, the money didn't seem like
it was flowing in Deer's direction.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Like it once was. Here's a good example.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
A couple months after Clem died, a once in a
generation flood hit Idlewild, Harper says it caused intense damage
on the ranch.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
And it took out the bridge, it took up the dam,
and had left cavities everywhere, and when she had at
Clinton if he would help make the repairs, he refused.
He said, you're not If you're eating, that's all you
need for right down.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Harper also told me that in January twenty twenty, the
kids cut Deer off financially. Clinton says this wasn't the
case at all. He says that he sent his mother
plenty of money.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
The shoe was never cut off even for a second.
I did know about the flood. I don't recall being
asked to help. I do recall her discussing it as
a potential reason why she couldn't attend Clem's memorial. And
I said, you got to find a way. This is
your husband's and I'm throwing a nice service. That's about
(29:31):
really the extent.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
You know.
Speaker 5 (29:34):
They loved to try and make it sound as if
we were refusing her money or some such.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Did she make it to your two dad's memorial?
Speaker 6 (29:44):
She did? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Again, we have these two opposing narratives. Whatever the reality
of how much money the kids were sending deer. We
do know that she felt it wasn't anywhere near what
she deserved. To make things more complicated, that was a
change in tax law that affected the amount Dea stood
to gain from Clem's estate. So, as Clem's legal wife,
(30:09):
she was expecting to get around half of his estate
around five million dollars, but after the change she could
potentially be left with nothing zero. So six months after
Clem died, Dea filed a lawsuit against her own children
to modify Clem's trust and invalidate that prenup she'd sign
(30:33):
with him all those years ago. Dea felt the prenup
was unfair and that she'd been pressured into it. She
wanted six point seven million dollars minimum. Dea and the
kid's vollied objections and amendments back and forth through San
Diego Superior Court. The kids did not want to comply
(30:54):
with their mother's demands. Dea was stressed. She texted Diana
about it in April of twenty twenty. I'll tell you
everything that's going on with the kids, Dea texted, it's
anyone's worst, and Diana remembers another comment dm made again
(31:14):
about the kids.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I had already been aware of the different things that
the kids were doing to make her life miserable.
Speaker 7 (31:24):
With the lawsuit.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
And she turned to me and she said, if anything
ever happens to me, Clinton did it.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So we're almost back to that June of twenty twenty,
back to the day when Dea disappeared.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
But there's one.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Other thing I've got to tell you about before we
can close that loop of time.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Remember that Deer.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Had crossed Chrissara out of her trust and had very
specifically noted that Clinton would get nothing. Well, Dea made
one more major move. She changed her tru trust again.
Dea named a new beneficiary, Keith Leslie Harper, and as
(32:21):
an alternate trustee second in command if something happened to
Harper was Diana Fedder. This meant that if anything happened
to Dia, Harper would assume control of her trust and
benefit from her entire estate, all her antiques, bank accounts, jewelry,
and property assets worth potentially millions of dollars. Two weeks
(32:46):
after Dea made this change to her trust, she disappeared.
Coming up on Where's Dear?
Speaker 6 (33:01):
There was a piece of paper that said that she
appeared for her.
Speaker 9 (33:04):
Life he would constantly call me, constantly text me is
the dead?
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Is Dia alive? She stays over and over, over and
over again to me and others that if I disappear
and if my son's doing.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Where's Dear is written and hosted by me Lucy Sheriff.
Our producer is Daphne Chen, editing by Karen Shakerji, Production
assistance from Joey Fish, ground fact checking by Lauren Vespoli.
Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Original score, sound design
(33:58):
and mastering by Echo Shaw's Where's Dea is a co
production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. You can listen to
(34:19):
all of Where's Dear right now ad free by becoming
a Pushkin Plus subscriber fine Pushkin Plus on the Apple
show page for Where's Dear or at pushkin dot fm
slash plus
Host
Lucy Sherriff
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