July 21, 2025 • 24 mins
Camille Dains Dodson, born in 1964 in Los Angeles, was a talented and driven woman who faced unexpected life challenges. She married Gary Dodson, the first person exonerated of rape by DNA evidence in the USA, but their relationship turned abusive. After leaving Gary, Camille moved to Las Vegas with her young daughter, Ashley, where she struggled with low-paying jobs and got entangled in dangerous relationships and activities. Camille disappeared on September 3, 1994, after being released from the Clark County Detention Center. Despite multiple theories about her disappearance, including possible ties to the mob and abusive partners, her case remains unsolved. Camille's daughter, Ashley, continues to seek justice and raise awareness about her mother's case.
If you have any information, please contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
For more information: findcamille.com
#CamilleDardanesDotson #GaryDotson #Nevada #LasVegasNevada
If you have any information, please contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
For more information: findcamille.com
#CamilleDardanesDotson #GaryDotson #Nevada #LasVegasNevada
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Welcome back to Navigating Advocacy, the podcast where we lift
up the stories of the missing, the murdered, and the
families who refuse to be silenced.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm Melissa and I'm Whitney. We've said it before, but
the hardest part about putting this podcast together is choosing
which story to cover. There are so many missing individuals
and unresolved stories that picking one is incredibly difficult. I
stumbled across the story that we're sharing today on Facebook,
reached out and made a connection with the daughter of
(01:03):
Camille Dardaines Dodson. We are Navigating Advocacy in Nevada this week.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Today we're sharing the story of a woman who seems
destined for greatness, bright, talented, and so driven, but life
pulled her down roads no one could have expected, and
when she disappeared in those neon light shadows of Las Vegas,
her story was nearly erased. This is the story of
Camille Dorothy Dardade's. Camille was born on February twenty third,
(01:45):
nineteen sixty four, in Los Angeles, California, a city known
for its grit and glamour. From the start, Camille was special.
She was brilliant, a straight, a student who just didn't
skate through school, danced through life. Literally she was a
classically trained dancer and a semi professional ice skater. This
(02:08):
is crazy to me because this is her as like
a teenager, a young adult to be a classically chrained
dancer as well as a semi professional ice skater.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
That right, she was no talent like pure talent is
what that is.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Athletic ability, oh my gosh, and the amount of training
she must have been doing insane. So even in this
large city, as a city as big as Chicago, Camille
stood out. She had the kind of beauty and present
that made people take notice. But it was her ambition
and intelligence that really defined her. She could have gone anywhere,
(02:47):
done anything. She grew up with the kind of passion
that couldn't be contained, whether she was skating, dancing, or
lighting up her room with her energy. She definitely lived boldly.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
When I spoke with her daughter, Ashley, I asked about
Camille's younger years. Now. Ashley was six barely seven years
old when her mom disappeared, so her own memories are
few and far between, and in her pursuit of justice
for Camille, she's heard many stories about her mother's childhood again.
She was raised in that upper middle class Chicago and
(03:22):
was a hard worker. Camille's mom kept her running, whether
it was her ballet or ice skating practices and classes,
or working at her stepfather's record store. Camill was always
working at something or doing something.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
So Camill's life is going on just fine. She's you know, working,
doing what she's got to do. But then her story
would take a dramatic turn when she married a man
named Gary Dodson. If that name sounds familiar, it's because
Gary actually made national headlines in the nineteen eighties as
(03:59):
he was the very first person in the USA exonerated
of rape by DNA evidence after he had been wrongly convicted.
And now the list is so long of the exonerations,
but he was the very first one. And this is
so advanced for the nineteen eighties that my mind still
(04:19):
has trouble like wrapping around everything that had happened to Gary.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Ashley had the opportunity to read her mom's diaries, and
inside of it there was several pages, several pages dedicated
to Camille seeing Gary for the first time on TV.
Camille had written about seeing Gary and her friend even
walked into the room and said, do you know who
that is? Because she seemed so enthralled with this person
on television, and Camille was like, no, I don't, but
(04:47):
I will. So I think that's just a direct example
of Camille's determination and how bold she was. She knew
that she was gonna know him.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I agree, And this is it's absolutely crazy that she
spotted him on TV. And this girl made this happen,
which is insane.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
After working all night, she took a train and a bus,
maybe even a couple buses. Not quite sure of the
bus schedule at the time, but she took multiple forms
of transportation to attend his clemency hearing in downtown Chicago.
At the hearing, Camille handed Gary a white carnation with
her phone number attached to it. Their whirlwind romance began
(05:26):
shortly after. Okay, so this was a big story.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So there are cameras and news anchors all in this
courtroom area where he's being let go, So this moment
is literally captured on film. The media could not get
enough of their story. You've got this wrongly convicted man,
a woman who knew of his alleged crimes, but she
(05:51):
did not believe that he was capable of any of it.
She was smitten and they were both attractive individuals.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So it kinda was like this super CUEU romance, maybe
lifetime movie thing going on. They were featured on Good
Morning America and Camill just loved the attention, being asked
to come on, you know, talk shows and do interviews
and that kind of thing. So as far as the
(06:18):
woman that actually falsely accused Gary, she would end up
writing a book and she gave Gary and Camill all
of the proceeds as a kind of apology. It was
approximately seventeen thousand dollars in nineteen eighty five, which would
be over like fifty thousand dollars today, you know, inflation.
(06:40):
The two used these funds to get them to Vegas
so that they could get married.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I believe they each bought themselves cars. They were buying
some stuff. Okay, he's just getting out of prison, she's
kind of starting her life. They they did spend quite
a bit of money together. Now we can kind of
talk about this whole situation with Gary. Not that I
think it has is the cause of Camille's disappearance or
(07:07):
anything like that, but it's good to get that background
information to understand what Camill and Gary were going to
because I do believe they loved each other. However, it's
a whole situation, So do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah? Absolutely, Like you said, Gary's story could be an
episode all its own. But the highlights are that, at
nineteen years old, Gary was convicted of rape. In nineteen
seventy nine. He would be sentenced to twenty five to
fifty years for the rape and another twenty five to
fifty years for aggravated kidnapping that would be served concurrently.
(07:40):
In nineteen eighty one, the appellate court upheld this conviction. However,
in nineteen eighty five, the accuser recanted her testimony. She
had found religion and felt compelled to come forward and
say I was wrong, and she put that back out there. Obviously,
we know the justice system is flawed, but that's honestly
(08:01):
why we have a podcast. And Gary was not exonerated immediately,
but he was released. There's like this whole timeframe of
he was released on parole, he was reincarcerated for something else,
he was released on parole again, he was brought back in.
It's kind of this give and take situation, a lot
of back and forth going on, and it wouldn't be
(08:21):
until nineteen eighty eight when DNA technologies had advanced enough
to positively exclude Gary and positively include another male in
the crime, which was actually the accuser's boyfriend at the time,
so all charges were officially dropped by August of nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, it's a lot. There's a lot to that whole story.
For a moment, it really must have felt like a dream. Fame, sympathy,
financial security. Plus Camille got the man that she set
her eyes on. That is who she said she was
gonna marry, and by golly, she did. But that dream
would crumble fast. Gary, who was once seen as a victim,
(09:05):
really turned into somewhat of a nightmare. He blew through
the money, became a raging alcoholic, and began abusing Camille.
It got so bad that he was once arrested for
threatening to kill their baby daughter, Ashley, if Camille ever
left him. But she did leave him and she didn't
(09:26):
look back, she would file for divorce. She packed up
Ashley and they moved across the country to Las Vegas, Nevada,
hoping for a fresh start. Her mother Barbara already lived
in there in the area, and so maybe Camille thought, like, hey,
Sin City would offer something that she hadn't had in years.
Freedom and plus she would have the help of her
(09:48):
mom being close by to help her raise Ashley. And
that's kind of just what she did. So she moves
to Vegas and she tries to rebuild her life. However,
she didn't have a lot of work experience and wasn't
able to get, you know, high paying jobs, so she
kind of just worked a series of waitressing jobs, store clerks, dancers,
(10:10):
that kind of thing. Eventually, though, she would take a
job as a dancers at Crazy Horse and Crazy Horse Too,
which are two clubs that have infamous reputations and they
have known ties to the Mob. She found love again
or what looked like love, with a man named George
(10:31):
Cruz Diaz Junior. She even had his name tattooed on
her hip. But this relationship followed a chilling pattern. Cruise,
just like Gary, became abusive. Friends would say he beat
her and would sexually assault her. There's at least one
incident where Camill was assaulted so severely that she suffered
(10:55):
broken bones. Yet Camill didn't give up. She tried again,
and again she tried, but by June of nineteen ninety four,
her once bright light was flickery. She had fallen into
drug use and was reportedly doing sex work to survive.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Cruise was seemingly very controlling. Ashley remembers him chasing her
and her mother. She remembers him putting her hands on Camille,
and the possibility of Camille engaging in sex work at
his behest is high. There's no proof of this. This
is purely just what we've seen in our experience. Due
to this lifestyle, Camille was getting arrested fairly regularly, and
(11:37):
she was hitting rock bottom. Her drug habit and smoking
had discolored her teeth, and she had recently broken her nose,
allegedly at the hands of Cruise. She had confided She
had confided in her friends that she felt someone was
following her or out to get her.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
The Camille, who once glided across the ice rink, was
now trying to survive on the edge of society. Camille
knew this lifestyle wasn't good for her daughter to be around,
so she left her in the care of her mother, Barbara.
They meaning Barbara Nashally would eventually move out of the
Vegas area back to Illinois, but they all would keep
(12:17):
in touch until one day she didn't. The last concrete
proof that Camille was alive was September third, nineteen ninety four,
the day she was released from jail following the arrest
with Kiko, which we haven't even mentioned Kiko yet. He
is another guy that she used to hang out with.
(12:38):
It could have been a partner at one time, but
I know she lived with him for a short period
of time. After that, nothing, no calls, no sightings, no Camill.
But because of Camill's lifestyle, it would be months before
her family would know anything was wrong. When they could
(13:00):
get a hold of her, Barbara nationally would return to Vegas,
so this was about seven months after the last time
anybody had any contact with her. Barbara would go to
her friends and asking if anybody had seen her. Nobody
had seen her. Some recalled that she had seemed paranoid
the last few times that they talk, or was afraid
(13:22):
of something or someone. Barbara would start learning about just
some rumors that were circulating Vegas. I feel like Vegas
seems like a big city to like tourists and outfighters,
but I think if you live in Vegas, it's almost
like a small town mentality. You know everyone that runs
the area, the managers of the restaurants, the hotels, like
(13:44):
who is the person to go for things.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
The locals know the locals, and they know the tourists.
So all everyone that's a local, they know each other
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Exactly, especially if you're in that environment, in the party
scene of that kind of thing. Some of the rumors
that were swirling around about what happened to Camill was
that she may have been pressured to work as a
confidential informant by police. They knew police knew that Camill
worked at these possibly mob connected facilities. That is one rumor.
(14:20):
Another one about the man Kiko that I had already mentioned,
So she was living with this guy and they also
had domestic violence in situations. That was the last person
she was with, so did he have something to do
with it. Then you also have just those clubs that
she did work in, so they were frequented by outlaw
(14:42):
biker gangs. There was dirty cops. There was speculation that
she knew too much about what a cop was doing.
In a lot of cases, there's only one or possibly
two people of suspicion here. In Camill's case, there's literally hundreds.
There's so well, she was connected to so many bad people,
(15:02):
and she just wanted to, you know, live her life
and raise her daughter, and she just couldn't get to
that point. I mean it, could Cruise have anything to
do with it? He was known to be violent against her.
Could he have found out that she was seeing someone else?
The theories in this case are as long as anything
(15:24):
I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
The possibilities are truly endless in this situation. So let's
talk a little bit about Kiko. Camilla had seemingly separated
from Cruise. She did live with Kiko for a bit.
The two at one point were running a drive through
cocaine window out of their apartment, which Ashley says that
(15:46):
Camilla isn't a very smart criminal, because that's why she
kept getting caught doing things. But in my mind, like
a drive through cocaine window, that sticks a little bit
of creativity. In my opinion, I would have never thought
of that.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It really does. All I could think about, Man, that's
probably some money.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
On September second of nineteen ninety four, Kiko and Camill
got into a fight that was loud and severe enough
that neighbors called in law enforcement. Police showed up on
the scene for this domestic disturbance and they found a
brick of marijuana that belonged to Keigo. He of course,
is going to be arrested for these drugs because this
is before marijuana was legal in Nevada. However, because Camill
(16:27):
was on probation, she is also now in trouble for this.
She was arrested for being in the same apartment as
the drugs, causing a parole violation. When she was released
from the Clark County Detention Center the next day, she
left on foot. And this is that last confirmed sighting
of Camill that you had talked about earlier. She didn't
(16:48):
show up for her arraignment hearing that was scheduled for
September twenty sixth, and this is very strange. Camill has
never missed one of her core dates, and seemingly she's
had several of them because she's been arrested a few
different times, so she knows how the justice is.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
She would have showed up exactly. It's very out of
character for her not to show up. But considering Camille's
mom and daughter, are living in a different state, and
you know they're doing their best to try to track
her down. It's kind of hard when you live states away.
And remember this is like before cell phones and that
kind of well, before everyone had a cell phone. In
(17:23):
nineteen ninety five, her mother actually was able to file
a missing person's report. The police shrugged, they marked it
as unfounded, said there was no sign of foul play,
and then somehow the report was deleted. I don't know
just how easy it is to delete a file, but
(17:43):
I would a police file. I know how easy it
is to delete it on my own computer, but I
would assume that it's difficult, or at least there's like
a few it's a few step process to prevent this
type of thing from accidentally happening. Because this report was
just gone, just like.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Camill, it blows my mind that they were able to
just delete it as well. That's super shocking for me.
A decade passes and one of Camill's friends reaches out
to Barbara just trying to touch base. Hey, how's Camille doing,
How's Ashley doing? And Barbara had to be the one
to tell her that Camill's been missing for almost eleven years.
(18:23):
At this point, the friend was shocked and asked if
a missing person's report had been filed, and Barbara said yes,
one had. However, when that friend contacted the Las Vegas
Metro Police Department, they said there was no such report.
It had been deleted ten years before. Barbara had no
clue that it had been deleted, So after eleven wasted years,
(18:46):
a second missing person's report had to be filed. There
was a little bit of a mix up in this
report when Barbara misspoke and said that she hadn't been
seen since May of nineteen ninety four. I'm assuming she
said she hadn't seen her so May of nineteen ninety four,
not that that was the last time anyone had seen her.
I'm assuming it's just a simple misspeak on that part.
(19:08):
But since she was in police custody in September, they
were able to determine that September third was the last
day that she was seen alive when she had left
the attention facility. So it's a little bit of confusion.
They had to clear that up a little bit on
some reports. Those reports would not be corrected until twenty seventeen,
when Ashley pulls the public records request and realizes how
(19:30):
wrong they are. But eleven years is a long time
to go without any sort of investigation or anyone looking
for a missing person. It's just wild.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Agreed. I'm so glad that you brought that up about
the dates, because I did see the other date, and
at first I'm like, what the heck? What kind of
where did I get this information? And I was having
like an oopsie moment because I saw that. But then
I'm like, the police had her in custody, where where's
the disconnect? So great, thank you that eleven years absolutely insane. Eventually,
(20:07):
you know, as it typically happens, whoever was on the
case eleven years ago and possibly deleted the file is
no longer on the case. Detective Dan Hawley was assigned
to Camill's case and took DNA samples from Ashley's grandfather,
Camill's father, in hopes they could match it to an
unidentified Jane Doe. However, nothing came back. Detective Holly was
(20:33):
a great detective, but as time passes, cases get reassigned.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
In twenty seventeen, a new detective was assigned. But it's
interesting because he had two roles within the department. He
was an animal control guy as well as a detective
for missing persons. It seems like, which is absolutely wild
to me for a department as large as the Las
Vegas Metro Police seems a little inefficient to me personally.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And it's Last Vegas, so there's like a lot of
police officers. What I feel like there should be a lot.
I mean, there's a lot of people traveling there and
just living there. Like I can understand if your department
had three officers, Yeah, you have to take care of
the missing people as well as the loose dogs on
the street. But when you have a couple hundred officers.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
This detective would ultimately resign and from there, Camille's case
was handed over to the missing persons unit, and basically
anyone in the department can work on Camille's case. There's
not one detective dedicated to Camill's case anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
What we do know is that Camill left behind people
who loved her, people who still believe she would never
go this long without reaching out, especially to her daughter.
Camill was only thirty years old when she disappeared. She
would be sixty today. She was a white woman with
brown hair and hazel eyes, five foot seven around one
(22:05):
hundred and thirty five pounds, athletic striking. She had a
broken nose, slightly discolored teeth. She always had a Marlborough
cigarettes in hand. She sometimes used the name Nicole, Renee
or Kim. Last names could be Clark or Diez, and
on her hip Forever Inked was the name of the
(22:27):
man who once claimed to love her, Cruise That's cru Z.
Camille's story is a haunting reminder that society often turns
its back on women who fall through the cracks, especially
when those cracks are laced with trauma, addiction, and survival.
But Camille Matters.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Actually took on the role of advocate for her mother,
and it's been a bit challenging. She struggled to getting
reports from law enforcement. As you can imagine, eleven years
with nothing being done, There's not really a lot in
Camille's case file in relation to her missing person story.
We are hoping to help her make connections for a
billboard campaign. I've shared with her all of our typical
(23:07):
and usual sources, but we need to keep bringing awareness
to Camill. Someone knows something, and it's been far too
long since she has been seen or talked about.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
If Camille's story moved you share it, say her name,
because silence protects perpetrators, but stories protect the truth. If
you have any information about Camille dotson disappearance, please contact
the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
We want to thank Ashley for sharing her mother's story
with us. If you want to learn more about Camille,
head over to the Find Camille Dardaine's dots and Facebook
page or Findcamill dot com. This episode was researched, written
and produced by us. If you would like to support
the podcast, please leave a five star of you on
(24:00):
your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
If you have a loved one that is medised or
has an unresolved case you would like to share, please
email us at info at Navigating Advocacy dot com
Welcome back to Navigating Advocacy, the podcast where we lift
up the stories of the missing, the murdered, and the
families who refuse to be silenced.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm Melissa and I'm Whitney. We've said it before, but
the hardest part about putting this podcast together is choosing
which story to cover. There are so many missing individuals
and unresolved stories that picking one is incredibly difficult. I
stumbled across the story that we're sharing today on Facebook,
reached out and made a connection with the daughter of
(01:03):
Camille Dardaines Dodson. We are Navigating Advocacy in Nevada this week.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Today we're sharing the story of a woman who seems
destined for greatness, bright, talented, and so driven, but life
pulled her down roads no one could have expected, and
when she disappeared in those neon light shadows of Las Vegas,
her story was nearly erased. This is the story of
Camille Dorothy Dardade's. Camille was born on February twenty third,
(01:45):
nineteen sixty four, in Los Angeles, California, a city known
for its grit and glamour. From the start, Camille was special.
She was brilliant, a straight, a student who just didn't
skate through school, danced through life. Literally she was a
classically trained dancer and a semi professional ice skater. This
(02:08):
is crazy to me because this is her as like
a teenager, a young adult to be a classically chrained
dancer as well as a semi professional ice skater.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
That right, she was no talent like pure talent is
what that is.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Athletic ability, oh my gosh, and the amount of training
she must have been doing insane. So even in this
large city, as a city as big as Chicago, Camille
stood out. She had the kind of beauty and present
that made people take notice. But it was her ambition
and intelligence that really defined her. She could have gone anywhere,
(02:47):
done anything. She grew up with the kind of passion
that couldn't be contained, whether she was skating, dancing, or
lighting up her room with her energy. She definitely lived boldly.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
When I spoke with her daughter, Ashley, I asked about
Camille's younger years. Now. Ashley was six barely seven years
old when her mom disappeared, so her own memories are
few and far between, and in her pursuit of justice
for Camille, she's heard many stories about her mother's childhood again.
She was raised in that upper middle class Chicago and
(03:22):
was a hard worker. Camille's mom kept her running, whether
it was her ballet or ice skating practices and classes,
or working at her stepfather's record store. Camill was always
working at something or doing something.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
So Camill's life is going on just fine. She's you know, working,
doing what she's got to do. But then her story
would take a dramatic turn when she married a man
named Gary Dodson. If that name sounds familiar, it's because
Gary actually made national headlines in the nineteen eighties as
(03:59):
he was the very first person in the USA exonerated
of rape by DNA evidence after he had been wrongly convicted.
And now the list is so long of the exonerations,
but he was the very first one. And this is
so advanced for the nineteen eighties that my mind still
(04:19):
has trouble like wrapping around everything that had happened to Gary.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Ashley had the opportunity to read her mom's diaries, and
inside of it there was several pages, several pages dedicated
to Camille seeing Gary for the first time on TV.
Camille had written about seeing Gary and her friend even
walked into the room and said, do you know who
that is? Because she seemed so enthralled with this person
on television, and Camille was like, no, I don't, but
(04:47):
I will. So I think that's just a direct example
of Camille's determination and how bold she was. She knew
that she was gonna know him.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I agree, And this is it's absolutely crazy that she
spotted him on TV. And this girl made this happen,
which is insane.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
After working all night, she took a train and a bus,
maybe even a couple buses. Not quite sure of the
bus schedule at the time, but she took multiple forms
of transportation to attend his clemency hearing in downtown Chicago.
At the hearing, Camille handed Gary a white carnation with
her phone number attached to it. Their whirlwind romance began
(05:26):
shortly after. Okay, so this was a big story.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So there are cameras and news anchors all in this
courtroom area where he's being let go, So this moment
is literally captured on film. The media could not get
enough of their story. You've got this wrongly convicted man,
a woman who knew of his alleged crimes, but she
(05:51):
did not believe that he was capable of any of it.
She was smitten and they were both attractive individuals.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So it kinda was like this super CUEU romance, maybe
lifetime movie thing going on. They were featured on Good
Morning America and Camill just loved the attention, being asked
to come on, you know, talk shows and do interviews
and that kind of thing. So as far as the
(06:18):
woman that actually falsely accused Gary, she would end up
writing a book and she gave Gary and Camill all
of the proceeds as a kind of apology. It was
approximately seventeen thousand dollars in nineteen eighty five, which would
be over like fifty thousand dollars today, you know, inflation.
(06:40):
The two used these funds to get them to Vegas
so that they could get married.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I believe they each bought themselves cars. They were buying
some stuff. Okay, he's just getting out of prison, she's
kind of starting her life. They they did spend quite
a bit of money together. Now we can kind of
talk about this whole situation with Gary. Not that I
think it has is the cause of Camille's disappearance or
(07:07):
anything like that, but it's good to get that background
information to understand what Camill and Gary were going to
because I do believe they loved each other. However, it's
a whole situation, So do you want to talk about that?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Yeah? Absolutely, Like you said, Gary's story could be an
episode all its own. But the highlights are that, at
nineteen years old, Gary was convicted of rape. In nineteen
seventy nine. He would be sentenced to twenty five to
fifty years for the rape and another twenty five to
fifty years for aggravated kidnapping that would be served concurrently.
(07:40):
In nineteen eighty one, the appellate court upheld this conviction. However,
in nineteen eighty five, the accuser recanted her testimony. She
had found religion and felt compelled to come forward and
say I was wrong, and she put that back out there. Obviously,
we know the justice system is flawed, but that's honestly
(08:01):
why we have a podcast. And Gary was not exonerated immediately,
but he was released. There's like this whole timeframe of
he was released on parole, he was reincarcerated for something else,
he was released on parole again, he was brought back in.
It's kind of this give and take situation, a lot
of back and forth going on, and it wouldn't be
(08:21):
until nineteen eighty eight when DNA technologies had advanced enough
to positively exclude Gary and positively include another male in
the crime, which was actually the accuser's boyfriend at the time,
so all charges were officially dropped by August of nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, it's a lot. There's a lot to that whole story.
For a moment, it really must have felt like a dream. Fame, sympathy,
financial security. Plus Camille got the man that she set
her eyes on. That is who she said she was
gonna marry, and by golly, she did. But that dream
would crumble fast. Gary, who was once seen as a victim,
(09:05):
really turned into somewhat of a nightmare. He blew through
the money, became a raging alcoholic, and began abusing Camille.
It got so bad that he was once arrested for
threatening to kill their baby daughter, Ashley, if Camille ever
left him. But she did leave him and she didn't
(09:26):
look back, she would file for divorce. She packed up
Ashley and they moved across the country to Las Vegas, Nevada,
hoping for a fresh start. Her mother Barbara already lived
in there in the area, and so maybe Camille thought, like, hey,
Sin City would offer something that she hadn't had in years.
Freedom and plus she would have the help of her
(09:48):
mom being close by to help her raise Ashley. And
that's kind of just what she did. So she moves
to Vegas and she tries to rebuild her life. However,
she didn't have a lot of work experience and wasn't
able to get, you know, high paying jobs, so she
kind of just worked a series of waitressing jobs, store clerks, dancers,
(10:10):
that kind of thing. Eventually, though, she would take a
job as a dancers at Crazy Horse and Crazy Horse Too,
which are two clubs that have infamous reputations and they
have known ties to the Mob. She found love again
or what looked like love, with a man named George
(10:31):
Cruz Diaz Junior. She even had his name tattooed on
her hip. But this relationship followed a chilling pattern. Cruise,
just like Gary, became abusive. Friends would say he beat
her and would sexually assault her. There's at least one
incident where Camill was assaulted so severely that she suffered
(10:55):
broken bones. Yet Camill didn't give up. She tried again,
and again she tried, but by June of nineteen ninety four,
her once bright light was flickery. She had fallen into
drug use and was reportedly doing sex work to survive.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Cruise was seemingly very controlling. Ashley remembers him chasing her
and her mother. She remembers him putting her hands on Camille,
and the possibility of Camille engaging in sex work at
his behest is high. There's no proof of this. This
is purely just what we've seen in our experience. Due
to this lifestyle, Camille was getting arrested fairly regularly, and
(11:37):
she was hitting rock bottom. Her drug habit and smoking
had discolored her teeth, and she had recently broken her nose,
allegedly at the hands of Cruise. She had confided She
had confided in her friends that she felt someone was
following her or out to get her.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
The Camille, who once glided across the ice rink, was
now trying to survive on the edge of society. Camille
knew this lifestyle wasn't good for her daughter to be around,
so she left her in the care of her mother, Barbara.
They meaning Barbara Nashally would eventually move out of the
Vegas area back to Illinois, but they all would keep
(12:17):
in touch until one day she didn't. The last concrete
proof that Camille was alive was September third, nineteen ninety four,
the day she was released from jail following the arrest
with Kiko, which we haven't even mentioned Kiko yet. He
is another guy that she used to hang out with.
(12:38):
It could have been a partner at one time, but
I know she lived with him for a short period
of time. After that, nothing, no calls, no sightings, no Camill.
But because of Camill's lifestyle, it would be months before
her family would know anything was wrong. When they could
(13:00):
get a hold of her, Barbara nationally would return to Vegas,
so this was about seven months after the last time
anybody had any contact with her. Barbara would go to
her friends and asking if anybody had seen her. Nobody
had seen her. Some recalled that she had seemed paranoid
the last few times that they talk, or was afraid
(13:22):
of something or someone. Barbara would start learning about just
some rumors that were circulating Vegas. I feel like Vegas
seems like a big city to like tourists and outfighters,
but I think if you live in Vegas, it's almost
like a small town mentality. You know everyone that runs
the area, the managers of the restaurants, the hotels, like
(13:44):
who is the person to go for things.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
The locals know the locals, and they know the tourists.
So all everyone that's a local, they know each other
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Exactly, especially if you're in that environment, in the party
scene of that kind of thing. Some of the rumors
that were swirling around about what happened to Camill was
that she may have been pressured to work as a
confidential informant by police. They knew police knew that Camill
worked at these possibly mob connected facilities. That is one rumor.
(14:20):
Another one about the man Kiko that I had already mentioned,
So she was living with this guy and they also
had domestic violence in situations. That was the last person
she was with, so did he have something to do
with it. Then you also have just those clubs that
she did work in, so they were frequented by outlaw
(14:42):
biker gangs. There was dirty cops. There was speculation that
she knew too much about what a cop was doing.
In a lot of cases, there's only one or possibly
two people of suspicion here. In Camill's case, there's literally hundreds.
There's so well, she was connected to so many bad people,
(15:02):
and she just wanted to, you know, live her life
and raise her daughter, and she just couldn't get to
that point. I mean it, could Cruise have anything to
do with it? He was known to be violent against her.
Could he have found out that she was seeing someone else?
The theories in this case are as long as anything
(15:24):
I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
The possibilities are truly endless in this situation. So let's
talk a little bit about Kiko. Camilla had seemingly separated
from Cruise. She did live with Kiko for a bit.
The two at one point were running a drive through
cocaine window out of their apartment, which Ashley says that
(15:46):
Camilla isn't a very smart criminal, because that's why she
kept getting caught doing things. But in my mind, like
a drive through cocaine window, that sticks a little bit
of creativity. In my opinion, I would have never thought
of that.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It really does. All I could think about, Man, that's
probably some money.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
On September second of nineteen ninety four, Kiko and Camill
got into a fight that was loud and severe enough
that neighbors called in law enforcement. Police showed up on
the scene for this domestic disturbance and they found a
brick of marijuana that belonged to Keigo. He of course,
is going to be arrested for these drugs because this
is before marijuana was legal in Nevada. However, because Camill
(16:27):
was on probation, she is also now in trouble for this.
She was arrested for being in the same apartment as
the drugs, causing a parole violation. When she was released
from the Clark County Detention Center the next day, she
left on foot. And this is that last confirmed sighting
of Camill that you had talked about earlier. She didn't
(16:48):
show up for her arraignment hearing that was scheduled for
September twenty sixth, and this is very strange. Camill has
never missed one of her core dates, and seemingly she's
had several of them because she's been arrested a few
different times, so she knows how the justice is.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
She would have showed up exactly. It's very out of
character for her not to show up. But considering Camille's
mom and daughter, are living in a different state, and
you know they're doing their best to try to track
her down. It's kind of hard when you live states away.
And remember this is like before cell phones and that
kind of well, before everyone had a cell phone. In
(17:23):
nineteen ninety five, her mother actually was able to file
a missing person's report. The police shrugged, they marked it
as unfounded, said there was no sign of foul play,
and then somehow the report was deleted. I don't know
just how easy it is to delete a file, but
(17:43):
I would a police file. I know how easy it
is to delete it on my own computer, but I
would assume that it's difficult, or at least there's like
a few it's a few step process to prevent this
type of thing from accidentally happening. Because this report was
just gone, just like.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Camill, it blows my mind that they were able to
just delete it as well. That's super shocking for me.
A decade passes and one of Camill's friends reaches out
to Barbara just trying to touch base. Hey, how's Camille doing,
How's Ashley doing? And Barbara had to be the one
to tell her that Camill's been missing for almost eleven years.
(18:23):
At this point, the friend was shocked and asked if
a missing person's report had been filed, and Barbara said yes,
one had. However, when that friend contacted the Las Vegas
Metro Police Department, they said there was no such report.
It had been deleted ten years before. Barbara had no
clue that it had been deleted, So after eleven wasted years,
(18:46):
a second missing person's report had to be filed. There
was a little bit of a mix up in this
report when Barbara misspoke and said that she hadn't been
seen since May of nineteen ninety four. I'm assuming she
said she hadn't seen her so May of nineteen ninety four,
not that that was the last time anyone had seen her.
I'm assuming it's just a simple misspeak on that part.
(19:08):
But since she was in police custody in September, they
were able to determine that September third was the last
day that she was seen alive when she had left
the attention facility. So it's a little bit of confusion.
They had to clear that up a little bit on
some reports. Those reports would not be corrected until twenty seventeen,
when Ashley pulls the public records request and realizes how
(19:30):
wrong they are. But eleven years is a long time
to go without any sort of investigation or anyone looking
for a missing person. It's just wild.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Agreed. I'm so glad that you brought that up about
the dates, because I did see the other date, and
at first I'm like, what the heck? What kind of
where did I get this information? And I was having
like an oopsie moment because I saw that. But then
I'm like, the police had her in custody, where where's
the disconnect? So great, thank you that eleven years absolutely insane. Eventually,
(20:07):
you know, as it typically happens, whoever was on the
case eleven years ago and possibly deleted the file is
no longer on the case. Detective Dan Hawley was assigned
to Camill's case and took DNA samples from Ashley's grandfather,
Camill's father, in hopes they could match it to an
unidentified Jane Doe. However, nothing came back. Detective Holly was
(20:33):
a great detective, but as time passes, cases get reassigned.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
In twenty seventeen, a new detective was assigned. But it's
interesting because he had two roles within the department. He
was an animal control guy as well as a detective
for missing persons. It seems like, which is absolutely wild
to me for a department as large as the Las
Vegas Metro Police seems a little inefficient to me personally.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And it's Last Vegas, so there's like a lot of
police officers. What I feel like there should be a lot.
I mean, there's a lot of people traveling there and
just living there. Like I can understand if your department
had three officers, Yeah, you have to take care of
the missing people as well as the loose dogs on
the street. But when you have a couple hundred officers.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
This detective would ultimately resign and from there, Camille's case
was handed over to the missing persons unit, and basically
anyone in the department can work on Camille's case. There's
not one detective dedicated to Camill's case anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
What we do know is that Camill left behind people
who loved her, people who still believe she would never
go this long without reaching out, especially to her daughter.
Camill was only thirty years old when she disappeared. She
would be sixty today. She was a white woman with
brown hair and hazel eyes, five foot seven around one
(22:05):
hundred and thirty five pounds, athletic striking. She had a
broken nose, slightly discolored teeth. She always had a Marlborough
cigarettes in hand. She sometimes used the name Nicole, Renee
or Kim. Last names could be Clark or Diez, and
on her hip Forever Inked was the name of the
(22:27):
man who once claimed to love her, Cruise That's cru Z.
Camille's story is a haunting reminder that society often turns
its back on women who fall through the cracks, especially
when those cracks are laced with trauma, addiction, and survival.
But Camille Matters.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Actually took on the role of advocate for her mother,
and it's been a bit challenging. She struggled to getting
reports from law enforcement. As you can imagine, eleven years
with nothing being done, There's not really a lot in
Camille's case file in relation to her missing person story.
We are hoping to help her make connections for a
billboard campaign. I've shared with her all of our typical
(23:07):
and usual sources, but we need to keep bringing awareness
to Camill. Someone knows something, and it's been far too
long since she has been seen or talked about.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
If Camille's story moved you share it, say her name,
because silence protects perpetrators, but stories protect the truth. If
you have any information about Camille dotson disappearance, please contact
the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
We want to thank Ashley for sharing her mother's story
with us. If you want to learn more about Camille,
head over to the Find Camille Dardaine's dots and Facebook
page or Findcamill dot com. This episode was researched, written
and produced by us. If you would like to support
the podcast, please leave a five star of you on
(24:00):
your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
If you have a loved one that is medised or
has an unresolved case you would like to share, please
email us at info at Navigating Advocacy dot com
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.