March 31, 2023 • 37 mins
Davante Richardson, 28, went missing from a rural area near Greybull, Wyoming in July 2020.
He'd been living with his mother in south Washington, D.C., about a mile from the nation's capital.
In late July, Davante embarked on a cross-country road trip from the urban streets of D.C., to the remote expanse of Wyoming's high desert.
He hasn't been seen since, and his disappearance remains unsolved.
Anyone with information that may be relevant to this investigation may contact the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office at 307-568-2324, or Investigator Israel James with D.C. Metro Police at 202-727-9099.
Sources for this episode include NBC 4 in Washington, D.C., Angela Lassiter's research in Wyoming for Find-911, the Lovell, Wyoming Chronicle, the Sheridan, Wyoming Press, County10.com, and the Greybull Standard
He'd been living with his mother in south Washington, D.C., about a mile from the nation's capital.
In late July, Davante embarked on a cross-country road trip from the urban streets of D.C., to the remote expanse of Wyoming's high desert.
He hasn't been seen since, and his disappearance remains unsolved.
Anyone with information that may be relevant to this investigation may contact the Big Horn County Sheriff's Office at 307-568-2324, or Investigator Israel James with D.C. Metro Police at 202-727-9099.
Sources for this episode include NBC 4 in Washington, D.C., Angela Lassiter's research in Wyoming for Find-911, the Lovell, Wyoming Chronicle, the Sheridan, Wyoming Press, County10.com, and the Greybull Standard
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:28):
Hello, Status Fenders. Welcome backto Status Pending and the Case Overview series.
Scott Fuller and Heather Rights joining youfor another Friday, which we're recording
on a Wednesday, which feels reallystrange. Heather, how are you?
Yeah, I'm good. It doesfeel strange though. I was like,
wait, we're ahead of schedule.This is how organized we used to be.
Yeah, we used to do iton Tuesdays. How was our day?
(00:50):
Oh geez, that's right. Yeah, I've forgotten about those organized days.
Yeah, that was a way inthe past. Wednesday boom boom boom.
And then we got off of thatand we started recording at like five
am Friday morning. Very awkward.Yeah, it didn't quite work. No,
good for anyone anyway. How isyour week going? It's good,
it's over now my work week isover? Now? Good? Like that?
(01:11):
You now that we know what dayit is, have Wednesday and Thursday
off? Wow, Thursday, Fridayand Monday. Yeah? Oh good?
So what are you doing with thattime? I am spending the weekend with
my stepdaughter at college. Oh that'sright, you told me about Yeah,
yeah, it'd be fun. Speakingof which I was called not for the
(01:32):
first time, but for the firsttime in one of the first few times
middle aged this week. Well,and I'm thirty eight and a half,
right October? Yeah, so thirtyeight and a half, And that's if
you go by my insurance table.I guess I'm middle aged. I just
can't wait till you get your ARPcard. They send me stuff in the
(01:55):
mail. Do you think that's related? Absolutely? Don't you start getting those
at four? But I've gotten thosesince I was twenty. I feel well,
I'm cool. I missed that one. I'm an old soul, but
there's part of me that's fine withbeing mathematically middle aged at this point,
because what is that seventy six?Right, Yes, you're trying to thirty
(02:20):
eight times too. Everybody councils down. But anytime after seventy six, I
don't know. Maybe I'm wrong andyou get there and no, I'm still
active in loving life, but I'mgood with checking out by seventy six.
Oh my god, you and Jasonboth, you guys need a chill with
that. We're out there in theworld though, See, we're out of
(02:42):
the world. Yeah, but that'sthe thing. It's the men who are
saying it, and women are botheredby the premise, but they're also secretly
okay with having like their last tenyears to themselves too. I'm convinced we'll
find out. I'm assuming it's goingto happen to women. In fact,
I'm thinking about a lot of thingsthis week. Before we got on,
(03:04):
I was listening to a song,I was thinking about the stock market,
I was thinking about Joan of Arc, I was thinking about my own life
transitions. And then you called in, like it's a radio show, I
called in, Yeah, all right, So I am excited, very excited
to bring you this week's case.It's not very long, but it's everything.
It's all the boxes that we wantto check. It's not covered very
(03:28):
often. It is a marginalized victim, or at least a marginalized missing person,
and it's got those twists that Ilook for in cases too of Are
you serious? Did that really justhappen? I'm hyping it quite a bit,
but I'm excited to advocate for thisone. We'll do that coming up
next. Are you a true crimeadvocate? Are you passionate about uncovering the
(03:53):
truth and bringing justice to victims?Do you love the paranormal and spooky tales
we know you do, and that'swhy you won't want to miss the True
Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival that's takingplace in Austin, Texas August twenty fifth
to twenty seventh of this summer twentytwenty three. The festival features panel discussions,
workshops, and live podcasts being recordedright there in front of you,
(04:15):
with a special focus on ethics andadvocacy in the true crime sphere. That's
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(04:42):
the code status at checkout. That'sTruecrime Podcast Festival dot com. Use our
promo code status at checkout for fifteenpercent off and we'll see you in Austin,
Texas this August twenty fifth through thetwenty seventh. How is my promo
for this episod so and Heather excellent. I'm actually really excited for this one
(05:02):
too. I'm a little five sevenpercent worried that you've heard of this before.
Well, you know how my brainis, it has a lot of
true crime in it, So yeah, I may have forgotten a lot of
stuff. Well, it's it's recent, twenty twenty and the name may not
do it, but the name andthe place might do it. So we're
(05:23):
going to talk about twenty eight yearold Davantay Richardson, who was last seen
in Wyoming. Nothing. It's notringing a bell good, No, I
mean, we want to advocate forthe case, but it's also fun if
Heather hasn't heard of my case before. So here we go. Twenty eight
year old Vantay Richardson went missing froma rural area near Graybel, Wyoming,
(05:45):
in July of twenty twenty. Grabelis in the northern part of the state,
in Big Horn County, which isright up against Montana geographically, so
there's a lot of nothing and it'sright up in the middle of nowhere.
What immediately stands out to you aboutthis case is Devanta is now from Wyoming.
He is from Washington, DC.You'd be hard pressed to find two
different places than where he grew upabout a mile south of the Capitol on
(06:11):
the Potomac, like a block anda half off, but still in a
very urban area. And Grabel,Wyoming, which is just miles hundreds of
miles of nothing. Grabel itself isvery small. So questions to be answered
in this episode is what is DevontaeRichardson doing out there and what happens to
him? And I can answer someof those questions as we go. Question,
(06:32):
you said this was in July oftwenty twenty. Yes, so the
height of the lockdown and the pandemic. Very true. I had not thought
about that. I've looked into afew cases recently and this is just a
side, little bar, but thereare a lot of missing persons cases and
murders that happened during the lockdown.So it's just something I feel like maybe
(06:54):
we could touch on the Patreon atsome point, but it's incredible the number.
I'd want to wrap my mind aroundthat and come up with theories and
causation and all that, because Ihad not thought of that. Yeah,
Queen of context, Heather right by, right. So, as Heather just
pointed out, this is July oftwenty twenty, that's very interesting. Now
(07:15):
that you say that, Davante decidestwenty eight years old again, he's going
to embark on a cross country roadtrip from this place where he grew up
in Washington, d C. He'salso lived in other areas of the country.
Memphis, he went to we'll talkabout a college in Missouri. But
he's certainly, to my knowledge,never been to a place like graybel Wyoming.
(07:38):
Very few people have. So he'sgoing to embark on this road trip
that we're going to be talking about, but from that time when he arrives
in Wyoming, he's never seen again. I want to credit right away a
woman named Angela Lasseter, who Ispent a good amount of time on the
phone with here in the last coupleof days. She brought this case to
(08:00):
my attention. She is part ofa Cody, Wyoming based group called find
nine one one and what they do, and I'm not sure if they're nonprofit
or what their status is, butthey provide drones and dogs and other search
assets to the families of missing peoplein this specific area. And I think
they're encompassing some of Montana and mostof Wyoming, and they've done work i'm
(08:22):
sure in other places. I don'tknow anything about the group beyond speaking to
Angela, but it sounds like verysimilar work that I do with Fine Jodi,
where it's a group of volunteers alluniting with their skill sets for a
common purpose. So angel Alaster isa principle source for this episode, and
she sent me a handful of casesfrom this same area, and that is
(08:43):
something to keep in mind. I'mnot going to address it here in the
episode, but there are, youknow, since twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
there are three cases that she broughtto my attention of missing people or
unsolved probable homicides. But these arethree cases where none of the body's been
found. And I'm not saying Davantafalls into this category, but she's the
(09:05):
one that brought it to me andsaid, what if you know, here
are these three cases. They're allpretty much together in this rural area,
very small area of the country.Mathematically, what's the deal? What's going
on here? Might they be linked? And if not, can we advocate
for them anyway? Angela Laster interviewedDavante's family, and I think it took
a while for her to get ahold of two family members that she ended
(09:26):
up speaking to and that's the basisfor the information for the timeline here that
we'll start with. So on Julytwenty second, twenty twenty, Davante told
his younger cousins that he had togo check on his friend Kanye. About
six hours later, DeVante got atext from the same cousins that said,
the power is out here in Washington, d C. I don't know this
(09:48):
for sure, but that leads meto believe that Davante is either gone on
his road trip already or he's aboutto go. So he gets a text
from his cousin the powers out dueto a storm in Washington. The next
morning, I think about eight tenhours later, he texts back to his
cousins to ask if the power hadcome back on. And I mentioned those
(10:11):
minute details because that's the last timeanybody heard that I know of from Davante.
That was July twenty third, twentytwenty, the day after he has
indicated he's going to go check onhis friend Kanye, and the day after
anybody has physically seen him in personat his mother's house in DC. Five
(10:31):
days later, DeVante was reported missingto police in DC. The DC Metro
Police on that same day, fivedays after he's last heard from, His
abandoned car was found nineteen hundred milesaway in Grabele, Wyoming, or outside
of Grabel. He was driving atwenty sixteen Jeep Compass with DC license plates.
(10:56):
It was found on Crystal Creek HallRoad, about six miles north and
east of Grabele, Wyoming. Thisroad is one of many mining roads in
the area. I'm going to sendyou this picture. It's it's on our
website at steatus Spending podcast dot com. But I'm going to send the stage
just so you can see, justto give you an idea of what we're
(11:18):
looking at. What the heck,I can't even tell what it is.
It kind of looks like it's rock. It's just nothing. It's high,
there's no vegetation. That's all dirtand not mountains but ravines. I like
barely see some green, you know. So bottom left to the pictures Grabel.
(11:39):
It goes north and south so youcan see, you know, kind
of a valley, natural valley goinginto Graybele. That's Grabel up here in
the center of the image. Andthen to the top right is the area
where his car is found, andthat's a from top left to bottom right.
It's probably twenty miles. Oh myGod of rock of pure just nothing.
(12:01):
Yeah, if you're there, youcan't see over the horizon. It's
just the next mesa. It's nothing. And as you see, there's nothing
there. So this dirt road thathis car is found on, nineteen hundred
miles away from Washington, DC istechnically it's a private road. You're allowed
to drive on it, but thereare signs that say yield to mining traffic
(12:22):
if you're using this road. There'sno reason for any person like Davante certainly
who's not from the area to bethere. There's no reason for anybody from
the area to be there unless theyare going to work at the mine or
some of the reason I can't thinkof. It's just the very rural roads.
But JP is sitting right in themiddle and it's not pulled off to
(12:45):
the side. It didn't crash.It is parked in the wrong lane,
if you can imagine that on thisdirt road and nothing. That's it.
And that was five days up,five days after last same day he was
reported missing. In fact, hiscar was found before he was reported missing,
back in a couple hours before,but nobody knew he was missing,
(13:07):
at least the authorities didn't know hewas missing yet. Okay, gotcha.
So Devantae's jeep was found in thisjust middle of nowhere road in the early
morning hours, sometime between one thirtyand four thirty in the morning by somebody
who was going to work at oneof the mines. It was unlocked.
Still inside the car were his keys, a laptop, and two cell phones.
(13:31):
They also end up finding some kindof illegal drugs and it seems like
it was cannabis or marijuana, doesn'tspecify. Marijuana is illegal in DC,
it's not legal in Wyoming. Thereis nothing else. There are no footprints
going away from the car. Thereis no sign of a scuffle. There's
nothing but just this unlocked park jeepwith this guy's possessions still inside. So
(13:56):
DeVante's family members when contacted by Angela, a lassiter, she asked him why
was he out there? Did hehave a need or a want to go
to Wyoming? Did he was heinto like what's around there? Archeology or
history or what they say? Theonly thing they can think of is his
(14:20):
passion for music. His social medialisted him as first of all attending a
historically black college in Missouri. Davante'sBlack. He also lists a job in
music promotion and his roles as CEOfor Launched Studios and CEO for Big Blues
Studios, and that second one,at least I'm not sure about Launched Studios,
(14:43):
but Big Blues Studios was he wouldprovide like graphic design and website design
for people in the music industry,and from what I can tell, he
had a couple of clients and hewas kind of getting it off the ground.
He had a performance handle of dRich. If you remember, he
told his cousins he was going togo check on his friend Kanye. So
(15:05):
now we have to actually talk aboutKanye West. I swear in the beginning
when you when you paused for asecond, I almost said something, but
I just felt like it was probablyinappropriate. But now that you brought Ky
did the same thing. So Iwas talking with Angela and I she told
the story and I said, allright, I know for a fact not
many Kanye's in Wyoming, but let'ssee where it's going. And she keeps
(15:26):
talking and I'm like, are wetalking about Kanye West? And She's like,
yes, So we really are okay, because I was going to say
he's looking for Kanye heading West.So Kanye West obviously is a rapper.
He's now called something else. Ican't keep up, like, yee,
right, he's Kanye I guess Ihave no idea I'm gonna say, the
(15:50):
rapper formerly known as Kanye West.Yeah, We'll all remember seeing in the
news that he bought this vast acreagein Wyoming in two thousand eighteen, and
then he bought a second ranch intwenty nineteen. And that second ranch is
what we're talking about here. It'ssixty five hundred acres and it goes right
(16:11):
up against basically right up against Grabeland it's so it's miles away from where
DeVante's abandoned car is found. InJuly of twenty twenty, he has indicated
his intention to go see his friendKanye. He ends up right next to
his ranch, and he's in themusic industry like this is a legitimate possibility
that he is actually DeVante is actuallygoing to see Kanye West at his ranch
(16:33):
in Wyoming, or he's being catfishedby an impersonator. Right, So I've
not seen these, but there wasat least one way interaction between Davante and
the real Kanye on Twitter. Idon't know. I haven't seen documented two
way interaction between the two of them. We'll get back to that. But
(16:55):
in February twenty twenty one, Angelalast he again calls up after repeated attempts
to get a hold of somebody inDC who seems to be in charge of
this whole case, even though Imean the vehicles found in Wyoming, but
DC is one of the agencies handlingthe case. Angela calls up an investigator
with a missing person's unit at DCMetro. The investigator told Angela that DeVante
(17:21):
was apparently manic and delusional when heleft Washington, d C. He drove
thirty hours straight from DC to Wyomingafter sending several tweets to Kanye West,
whom he thought was his friend.The investigator told Angela that in the week
before Davante LEFDC, DeVante had purchaseda large amount of production equipment, music
(17:44):
equipment, which was left behind athis mother's home. DeVante was presumed to
be using cannabis at this time,or some other substance that isn't made clear.
It sounds like they found marijuana inthe car. The police in DC
did pull his GPS history from thegeep and they can see when in the
vehicles in DC, he punches inKanye's ranch address, which they assume he
(18:11):
found on the internet, and theycan watch the car as it follows the
route all the way west pretty muchNonStop for two seventy three miles or thirty
hours. He stopped only for fuel, they say, And according to this
investigator in DC, the jeep's GPStook Davante to this area, this remote
area, on these roads, thesemining roads, where police believe he eventually
(18:34):
became lost or disoriented. They thinkhe was coming down off his substances at
the time, which were found insidethe car. So he's exhausted, he's
maybe under the influence to some degree. He's in the dark, he has
no idea where he is. Hecan't see anything. They say, he
was confused. He's outside the rangeof cell service that's one hundred percent verified,
(18:56):
so we can't call for help.And he walks away from the g
with all of his stuff, includinghis cell phones inside, leaves the jeep
unlocked, and then walks off beforeeventually dying in the desert. This is
where DC Metro is coming from.They documented no actual relationship between Davantay and
Kanye West, and to my knowledge, there is no documented relationship for those
(19:18):
wondering if Kanye is a suspect here, especially given his recent behavior. Kanye
has not been contacted by DC Metroas of early twenty twenty one, but
the Big Horn County Sheriff's Department hassaid that his security team was interviewed and
the office does not believe that Davantayever made it to the property. I
(19:41):
should mention this road that his caris found on. I mean, the
GPS isn't far off. It's aprivate mining road, but at some point
it does become Kanye's private road.It goes onto his property, so he
was on the right road to tryto go to that ranch. He apparently
hasn't been interviewed Kanye himself. Hissecurity team has and they never saw him.
They say they don't think he evergot there. This is creepy.
(20:04):
It's bizarre, isn't it? Likethere are cases that we cover the you
know, give you chills, butthis one, I don't know why,
but it's just given me, yeah, really bad vibes. What is he
doing? Yeah, is my questionsearch efforts for Davante. There was some
kind of search done for him,but Angela did a pretty good job on
(20:26):
this too. She knows for afact there were searches conducted. She can't
find any records. A member ofthe South Big Horn Search and Rescue told
the media quote, we spent thebetter part of the fall of twenty twenty
out there, using a helicopter,drones, riding on horseback, walking on
foot. We found nothing. Thework that's been done by her, she
talks to the people that were onhorseback, and she audits the logs of
(20:51):
the sa r out there, andshe can't collaborate any of this. But
there are also news accounts of thesearch that's being done for Davante, like
with helicopters, So obviously it happened. We're just not sure how many or
how often. At least once cadaverdogs were brought in. This is about
two months after DeVante's disappearance, sothe car has gone, the scene is
(21:12):
two months cold, and the cadaverdog did not indicate to any presence of
decomp at the area. The BigHorn County Sheriff's Department actually went out and
said at some point that they areconfident DeVante is not within six miles of
the location of his jeep, whichif you draw big circle, will take
you just about to the edge ofGray Bol. So they're basically saying between
(21:36):
here and gray Bol he is notwhat they're basing that off of how many
searches, how thorough can't be documented. The Bighorn County Schriff's Department has been
asked by DC Metro, according toBHCs, to not release any information about
the case. They say in orderto preserve the integrity of the investigation.
There are multiple illusions or outright statementsbetween this Wyoming Sheriff's Department and DC Metro.
(22:02):
They're not on the same page atthe very minimum. If you're read
between the lines, you might inferthat they're not getting along at certain points
in the investigation. But they're certainlynot on the same page. And I
think some of that's just culturally geographical. For example, when Devonte when his
car was found and authorities in Wyomingare on the plates in DC, DC
Metro says, can you give usan address of where this jeep was found?
(22:27):
The Big Horn County s Sheriff's Departmentis like, we don't have addresses.
I think one person said they tooka four way photo looking north,
southeast and west and they sent itto the investigator in DC and said,
from where should we get the address? So that's the kind of very sarcastic
and not helpful. Right. Wyomingis looking at DC saying, you guys
(22:48):
have no idea what you're talking about. You've never been to Wyoming. And
DC is looking at Wyoming like thisis a Barney Fife po dunk police Department
and it who have just gone fromthere? That's my interpretation. Angela herself
has traveled the area hanging hundreds ofmissing posters that were produced by the DC
(23:10):
Metro Police Department. She also madeChristmas cards for DeVante's family. The cards
have his photo and the words thosewe love don't go away. They walked
beside us every day, unseen,unheard, but always near, still loved,
still missed, and forever dear.And she sent those to the family.
(23:30):
It's very nice. Family members describedDeVante's kinds, caring, loves his
family, has a passion for music. We have a copy of a missing
flyer from DC at Status Spending podcastdot com and we've got the irrelevant info
for investigators with both the Wyoming Sheriff'soffice there and DC Metro Police. Sources
include NBC four in DC, ofcourse, Angela Laster's excellent research for fines
(23:55):
nine one, the Level Wyoming Chronicle, the Sheridan, Wyoming Press, County
ten dot com, my new employer, and the Grable Standard. That is
the story this week. Oh mygod, so much going on here,
so many questions. I mean,I feel like they've probably investigated all of
these questions, all of these angles, but I just wondering mindes want to
(24:17):
know, maybe was he ever theperson in the car who entered the GPS
for that address, Like, didhe ever for sure leave DC? Do
we have any surveillance footage of himat gas stations along the way, because
it seems like there weren't any pitstops other than gas stations. He didn't
veer off track at all. Isit a possibility that his car was dumped?
(24:37):
There was this planned out ahead oftime? See, you have cooboration
from his communication or at least hisphone to his cousins that he's going off
to meet Kanye. But when wasthe last time his cousins had seen him
before they Oh, I'm not sureabout the cousins, but I think he
was seen earlier that same day beforehe left, So I I see where
(25:00):
they're coming from with a manic thing. I think it fits where he feels
like he knows Kanye. He hasconvinced himself, and as you pointed out,
at the height of COVID, wheneverybody's brain is a little bit twisted.
Anyway, if there is any diagnosedor undiagnosed mental illness happening here,
it's easy. It's an easy out. But it does explain almost everything except
(25:23):
the timeline. If he's reported missingor his car has first found five days
after he's last seen and he's drivingthirty hours NonStop according to GPS data,
we have two and a half atleast days that are unaccounted for. Yeah,
he might have gone missing right awayand the car just wasn't found for
a couple of days. Certainly possiblewhere this jeep was found or there are
(25:48):
unaccounted for spaces in the timeline inGrabele, but I don't think so,
because the DC investigator told Angela thatthey followed the GPS to where it took
him to try to get to thisremote ranch, and so they can see
when he's moving, and they cansee for how long. So something tells
(26:10):
me they know that the timeline moreor less fits in the car, just
wasn't found for an additional, say, forty eight hours. So stemming off
of your information about a possible manicepisode and diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness,
especially during the height of COVID,we saw that it affected a lot of
people. So COVID in and ofitself could have definitely exacerbated any type of
(26:33):
mental illness that he had. Iagree with that one hundred percent. However,
if he went on this trip andhe put this address in his GPS,
he had this communication on his phone, what would make him leave his
devices in his car? They're prettyadvanced these days. But if there isn't
service like cell phone service, wouldthe car have the ability to still have
(26:56):
the GPS working if you don't havelike on start or something like that.
If not, maybe he got lostout there, couldn't figure out how to
get to the destination because the GPScut out, he didn't have service on
his phone, And what if hegot out and just started walking and something
happened to him. Yeah, that'sthe only other thing I can think.
(27:18):
I think the manic and intoxicated theoryworks. And the reason why is because
it's July. So if he getsout there in the middle of the night,
it was about probably sixty I thinksixty four degrees in the middle of
a night in July. In thattemperature, in that state, you might
say, I got to be closeto something, and you get out and
(27:40):
you walk. We've talked in pastepisodes about that's hypothermic temperatures. If it's
windy, you can get hypothermia atsixty plus degrees, if the conditions are
right and you're addressed a certain way. His trip doesn't seem planned out in
terms of the equipment, the gearthat you might need even in the summertime
Wyoming. And then if you survivethroughout the night, which he easily could
(28:03):
have, and the longer he survives, the bigger the radiuses where he's wandering
into nothing but the summer is goingto kill you. Two it's now ninety
five ninety seven degrees, it's dry, but it's still hot. You have
no water under those conditions, nightand day. It would take you probably
three and a half days at theabsolute most just to begin to succumb to
(28:26):
lack of water, to say nothingof temperature. That is a plausible scenario.
However, if the timeline is verifiedthrough GPS up until that point,
like time and date stamped, thendisregard this. This guy's going to stick
out like a sore thumb in Wyoming, and you have the opportunity if he
arrived there in thirty straight hours andthen is out and around for an additional
(28:51):
even twelve after that, he couldrun into the wrong kind of person who
knows this guy ain't from around herekind of thing, and fall victim to
some other scenario certainly possible in Wyoming. The third scenario, the first one
that's brought up. You know,when this case went public, the coverage
it did receive, is this guy'sgoing out to see Kanye West. Kanye's
(29:12):
obviously a strange guy, and thereforeKanye had something to do with this.
There's no evidence that Kanye West everwas aware of DeVante's existence, let alone
anything more severe, So I thinkcolumn Ay or Columby is more likely.
I tend to lead more toward whereDC is at. You can get yourself
in a whole bunch of trouble if, for example, your GPS took you
(29:34):
there and you ran out of gas, at which point you don't have cell
service anyway, so you leave bothcell phones in the car. Maybe that's
an inebriated decision. Maybe that's anexhausted decision, not smart, but maybe
that's what happened. It's been broughtup to me that this guy is from
DC Metro. He is going tolock his vehicle. I don't care where
(29:55):
it's parked. I don't know ifI believe that either, especially considering his
potential state of ostution and or inebriation. It is something to consider. This
guy is a fish out of water, though, that I know one hundred
percent. So however he ended upwherever he is now, he got in
over his head. And that couldbe because he walked away from his jeep.
(30:15):
It could be because something happened tohim twelve twenty four hours before that.
Now question about the jeep, becauseI mean, definitely that would make
sense if he ran out of gasand tried to get out and see if
he could find help or whatever thecase. But couldn't they tell that when
they found the car, whether ornot it ran out of gas, they
could, but they haven't said,and I'm not sure anybody's asked. I
(30:37):
mean, that's logical assumption. Numberone is he ran out of gas.
DC Metro kind of said he walkedaway from his car, which we can
infer from that that he had somegas in his tank. It's not a
firm assumption, but I think that'dbe the first thing they would put in
their theory. I mean, Iassume there was gas in the tank,
but almost like he was driving alongthe way and then somebody you spotted him,
(31:00):
stopped him. Hey what are youdoing here? Oh hey, I'm
coming to meet Kanye. Oh here, jump in. I'll give you a
ride. It's tricky to get therekind of thing. Or you stop at
a bar, or you stop itwhatever. But is there a bar out
there in that rock? Like?No, do we even know? What's
only six miles away from Gray Bowl. But the problem is, like if
you park and walk away like theythink he did, you have to pick
(31:21):
within five degrees of three hundred andsixty degrees. You have to be right
within five degrees in order to hitsomething in six miles. Otherwise you're just
going to walk forever. He couldhave easily traveled a man his age in
that time of year, he couldhave traveled twenty miles before he eventually secam.
See this is just really scary stuff. And it maybe because I'm a
(31:42):
female and paranoid about everything anyway,but like this is why I don't like
to travel alone. And when Itravel alone, I make sure my tank
is full and I have enough gasto get straight to where I'm going.
I don't stop at all, evenif I need to stop, I wait
until I get to the end locationbecause I am terrified of something just wild
like this happening. Yeah. I'mnot a fan of like saying live in
(32:07):
fear, but I do know thatwhen stuff starts to happen, when that
first domino falls, you get inturble real quick. Yeah, let's see,
if you're by yourself, if you'rein a place you'd never been before,
you could drop me in his situation, say out of gas and that
jeep and I'll survive. But there'sa chance I might not, you know,
like, especially if you're a middleaged, inebri and middle aged.
(32:30):
If I'm not running anywhere, ifyou're inebriated, if you have some diagnosed
or otherwise mental illness, of factoringin, he is out of his element.
And I'm not saying this is agood thing. But a black person
in Wyoming who's clearly from out oftown without a state plates driving a pretty
nice car talking about Kanye west House, I could easily see that going south
(32:53):
in the right situation. So I'mnot going to rule that out, especially
the way the car was left.Do you look at that car, Yes,
it could have run out of gas. The way it's sitting there,
it looks like a ghost car,but it almost looks dropped. And then
you've got a population of people,local workforce who's familiar with the mining roads.
They know where to leave a car, they know where to put a
(33:14):
body. There are tons of placesto hide a body that you'd never find
it, just as there are aton of places where he could walk to
that he'll probably never be found,even if he just went missing on his
own. And what kind of animalsare out there like in that that area,
Coyotes, there's some scavenger predation.We're not talking, but yeah,
(33:37):
it's not that. It's not thewilderness, it's the terrain. It's just
unforgiving and it's endless. Right.But if you're already like down on your
luck. Maybe you haven't had foodor water or anything for however many hours,
like you could be coyote food.You know, he's already dehydrated,
because everybody is when they're driving acrossthe country. And he doesn't leave that
(34:00):
car with a water bottle, ifhe didn't leave without a cell phone,
so he has no water. Yeah, he's in trouble as soon as he
loses sight of that car in thedark, especially, he's just about done.
For those two scenarios I think arethe most likely. But what Angela
brought up to me, which iswhy I thought we should bring it on
the podcast. And this is true. It's not covered. It was a
(34:21):
little bit nationally covered, this onethat she said, only because of Kanye,
only because he he's mentioned as partof the story, this guy going
missing. The other two cases arenot covered in Wyoming statewide, hardly at
all, and that's because there's nolocal news in Wyoming. And DeVante.
You have a marginalized victim who's almostat like the butt of a joke because
this guy got lost trying to findKanye Weston died. And if anyone's ever
(34:45):
heard of this case, that's allthey've ever heard about this guy, and
then we like to refocus and beardown on someone may well have done something
to this guy, but even ifnot, he got lost and he spent
long, grueling hour walking for hislife trying to survive, and eventually he
died. One of those two thingshappened, and either way, he should
(35:07):
be remembered as a missing person andpeople should be aware of the fact that
he's missing, absolutely, And Ifeel like that happens way too often.
Like that, there are so manycases that are brushed under the rug because
they don't have I don't know,we've talked about it before. The victimology
basically is the reason. Yeah,guy from DC goes missing. That's barely
(35:30):
ever a headline because bad things happenedto guys in DC all the time.
It's just a very high crime area. I mean, this one jumps off
the page because he's going to visita famous person in the middle of nowhere.
But nobody looks beyond that more orless forgotten about it. And it's
only been three years. Yeah,i'd never heard of it. You even
said like I might have heard ofit before, never King Well, and
(35:52):
when you first mentioned his name.I was like, Okay, cool,
somebody else has that name, LikeI didn't even think of No, it's
a pretty common name, Wyoming.Yeah. Right, all the infos and
the show notes and we actually havethe post up or we will by the
time it's in the feed at Stataspending podcast dot com. I've got that
ready with photos of DeVante as wellas this area where he went missing,
(36:15):
just so you can see the expanseas we talked about and all the pertinent
info with that, We thank everybodyfor listening. Thanks for our Patreon supporters.
We had a very nice couple ofthings I should mentioned. We got
a new Patreon supporter and we alsogot a very nice iTunes review about Yeah,
(36:35):
how about that? How can Ifinancially support the show? And that
might be our new Patreon supporter forall I know, for all the reasons
that we do it, and weappreciate that there are a few of you
out there, but listen, andthanks to you for listening. We will
talk to you again next Friday.
Hello, Status Fenders. Welcome backto Status Pending and the Case Overview series.
Scott Fuller and Heather Rights joining youfor another Friday, which we're recording
on a Wednesday, which feels reallystrange. Heather, how are you?
Yeah, I'm good. It doesfeel strange though. I was like,
wait, we're ahead of schedule.This is how organized we used to be.
Yeah, we used to do iton Tuesdays. How was our day?
(00:50):
Oh geez, that's right. Yeah, I've forgotten about those organized days.
Yeah, that was a way inthe past. Wednesday boom boom boom.
And then we got off of thatand we started recording at like five
am Friday morning. Very awkward.Yeah, it didn't quite work. No,
good for anyone anyway. How isyour week going? It's good,
it's over now my work week isover? Now? Good? Like that?
(01:11):
You now that we know what dayit is, have Wednesday and Thursday
off? Wow, Thursday, Fridayand Monday. Yeah? Oh good?
So what are you doing with thattime? I am spending the weekend with
my stepdaughter at college. Oh that'sright, you told me about Yeah,
yeah, it'd be fun. Speakingof which I was called not for the
(01:32):
first time, but for the firsttime in one of the first few times
middle aged this week. Well,and I'm thirty eight and a half,
right October? Yeah, so thirtyeight and a half, And that's if
you go by my insurance table.I guess I'm middle aged. I just
can't wait till you get your ARPcard. They send me stuff in the
(01:55):
mail. Do you think that's related? Absolutely? Don't you start getting those
at four? But I've gotten thosesince I was twenty. I feel well,
I'm cool. I missed that one. I'm an old soul, but
there's part of me that's fine withbeing mathematically middle aged at this point,
because what is that seventy six?Right, Yes, you're trying to thirty
(02:20):
eight times too. Everybody councils down. But anytime after seventy six, I
don't know. Maybe I'm wrong andyou get there and no, I'm still
active in loving life, but I'mgood with checking out by seventy six.
Oh my god, you and Jasonboth, you guys need a chill with
that. We're out there in theworld though, See, we're out of
(02:42):
the world. Yeah, but that'sthe thing. It's the men who are
saying it, and women are botheredby the premise, but they're also secretly
okay with having like their last tenyears to themselves too. I'm convinced we'll
find out. I'm assuming it's goingto happen to women. In fact,
I'm thinking about a lot of thingsthis week. Before we got on,
(03:04):
I was listening to a song,I was thinking about the stock market,
I was thinking about Joan of Arc, I was thinking about my own life
transitions. And then you called in, like it's a radio show, I
called in, Yeah, all right, So I am excited, very excited
to bring you this week's case.It's not very long, but it's everything.
It's all the boxes that we wantto check. It's not covered very
(03:28):
often. It is a marginalized victim, or at least a marginalized missing person,
and it's got those twists that Ilook for in cases too of Are
you serious? Did that really justhappen? I'm hyping it quite a bit,
but I'm excited to advocate for thisone. We'll do that coming up
next. Are you a true crimeadvocate? Are you passionate about uncovering the
(03:53):
truth and bringing justice to victims?Do you love the paranormal and spooky tales
we know you do, and that'swhy you won't want to miss the True
Crime and Paranormal Podcast Festival that's takingplace in Austin, Texas August twenty fifth
to twenty seventh of this summer twentytwenty three. The festival features panel discussions,
workshops, and live podcasts being recordedright there in front of you,
(04:15):
with a special focus on ethics andadvocacy in the true crime sphere. That's
very important topic now more than ever. Get your tickets now at Truecrime Podcast
Festival dot com and join us inAustin for an unforgettable experience. Don't miss
out on the chance to connect withother advocates and take your passion for true
crime and the paranormal to the nextlevel. Book your tickets today. We
can get you fifteen percent off forattendee and attend VIP tickets if you use
(04:42):
the code status at checkout. That'sTruecrime Podcast Festival dot com. Use our
promo code status at checkout for fifteenpercent off and we'll see you in Austin,
Texas this August twenty fifth through thetwenty seventh. How is my promo
for this episod so and Heather excellent. I'm actually really excited for this one
(05:02):
too. I'm a little five sevenpercent worried that you've heard of this before.
Well, you know how my brainis, it has a lot of
true crime in it, So yeah, I may have forgotten a lot of
stuff. Well, it's it's recent, twenty twenty and the name may not
do it, but the name andthe place might do it. So we're
(05:23):
going to talk about twenty eight yearold Davantay Richardson, who was last seen
in Wyoming. Nothing. It's notringing a bell good, No, I
mean, we want to advocate forthe case, but it's also fun if
Heather hasn't heard of my case before. So here we go. Twenty eight
year old Vantay Richardson went missing froma rural area near Graybel, Wyoming,
(05:45):
in July of twenty twenty. Grabelis in the northern part of the state,
in Big Horn County, which isright up against Montana geographically, so
there's a lot of nothing and it'sright up in the middle of nowhere.
What immediately stands out to you aboutthis case is Devanta is now from Wyoming.
He is from Washington, DC.You'd be hard pressed to find two
different places than where he grew upabout a mile south of the Capitol on
(06:11):
the Potomac, like a block anda half off, but still in a
very urban area. And Grabel,Wyoming, which is just miles hundreds of
miles of nothing. Grabel itself isvery small. So questions to be answered
in this episode is what is DevontaeRichardson doing out there and what happens to
him? And I can answer someof those questions as we go. Question,
(06:32):
you said this was in July oftwenty twenty. Yes, so the
height of the lockdown and the pandemic. Very true. I had not thought
about that. I've looked into afew cases recently and this is just a
side, little bar, but thereare a lot of missing persons cases and
murders that happened during the lockdown.So it's just something I feel like maybe
(06:54):
we could touch on the Patreon atsome point, but it's incredible the number.
I'd want to wrap my mind aroundthat and come up with theories and
causation and all that, because Ihad not thought of that. Yeah,
Queen of context, Heather right by, right. So, as Heather just
pointed out, this is July oftwenty twenty, that's very interesting. Now
(07:15):
that you say that, Davante decidestwenty eight years old again, he's going
to embark on a cross country roadtrip from this place where he grew up
in Washington, d C. He'salso lived in other areas of the country.
Memphis, he went to we'll talkabout a college in Missouri. But
he's certainly, to my knowledge,never been to a place like graybel Wyoming.
(07:38):
Very few people have. So he'sgoing to embark on this road trip
that we're going to be talking about, but from that time when he arrives
in Wyoming, he's never seen again. I want to credit right away a
woman named Angela Lasseter, who Ispent a good amount of time on the
phone with here in the last coupleof days. She brought this case to
(08:00):
my attention. She is part ofa Cody, Wyoming based group called find
nine one one and what they do, and I'm not sure if they're nonprofit
or what their status is, butthey provide drones and dogs and other search
assets to the families of missing peoplein this specific area. And I think
they're encompassing some of Montana and mostof Wyoming, and they've done work i'm
(08:22):
sure in other places. I don'tknow anything about the group beyond speaking to
Angela, but it sounds like verysimilar work that I do with Fine Jodi,
where it's a group of volunteers alluniting with their skill sets for a
common purpose. So angel Alaster isa principle source for this episode, and
she sent me a handful of casesfrom this same area, and that is
(08:43):
something to keep in mind. I'mnot going to address it here in the
episode, but there are, youknow, since twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
there are three cases that she broughtto my attention of missing people or
unsolved probable homicides. But these arethree cases where none of the body's been
found. And I'm not saying Davantafalls into this category, but she's the
(09:05):
one that brought it to me andsaid, what if you know, here
are these three cases. They're allpretty much together in this rural area,
very small area of the country.Mathematically, what's the deal? What's going
on here? Might they be linked? And if not, can we advocate
for them anyway? Angela Laster interviewedDavante's family, and I think it took
a while for her to get ahold of two family members that she ended
(09:26):
up speaking to and that's the basisfor the information for the timeline here that
we'll start with. So on Julytwenty second, twenty twenty, Davante told
his younger cousins that he had togo check on his friend Kanye. About
six hours later, DeVante got atext from the same cousins that said,
the power is out here in Washington, d C. I don't know this
(09:48):
for sure, but that leads meto believe that Davante is either gone on
his road trip already or he's aboutto go. So he gets a text
from his cousin the powers out dueto a storm in Washington. The next
morning, I think about eight tenhours later, he texts back to his
cousins to ask if the power hadcome back on. And I mentioned those
(10:11):
minute details because that's the last timeanybody heard that I know of from Davante.
That was July twenty third, twentytwenty, the day after he has
indicated he's going to go check onhis friend Kanye, and the day after
anybody has physically seen him in personat his mother's house in DC. Five
(10:31):
days later, DeVante was reported missingto police in DC. The DC Metro
Police on that same day, fivedays after he's last heard from, His
abandoned car was found nineteen hundred milesaway in Grabele, Wyoming, or outside
of Grabel. He was driving atwenty sixteen Jeep Compass with DC license plates.
(10:56):
It was found on Crystal Creek HallRoad, about six miles north and
east of Grabele, Wyoming. Thisroad is one of many mining roads in
the area. I'm going to sendyou this picture. It's it's on our
website at steatus Spending podcast dot com. But I'm going to send the stage
just so you can see, justto give you an idea of what we're
(11:18):
looking at. What the heck,I can't even tell what it is.
It kind of looks like it's rock. It's just nothing. It's high,
there's no vegetation. That's all dirtand not mountains but ravines. I like
barely see some green, you know. So bottom left to the pictures Grabel.
(11:39):
It goes north and south so youcan see, you know, kind
of a valley, natural valley goinginto Graybele. That's Grabel up here in
the center of the image. Andthen to the top right is the area
where his car is found, andthat's a from top left to bottom right.
It's probably twenty miles. Oh myGod of rock of pure just nothing.
(12:01):
Yeah, if you're there, youcan't see over the horizon. It's
just the next mesa. It's nothing. And as you see, there's nothing
there. So this dirt road thathis car is found on, nineteen hundred
miles away from Washington, DC istechnically it's a private road. You're allowed
to drive on it, but thereare signs that say yield to mining traffic
(12:22):
if you're using this road. There'sno reason for any person like Davante certainly
who's not from the area to bethere. There's no reason for anybody from
the area to be there unless theyare going to work at the mine or
some of the reason I can't thinkof. It's just the very rural roads.
But JP is sitting right in themiddle and it's not pulled off to
(12:45):
the side. It didn't crash.It is parked in the wrong lane,
if you can imagine that on thisdirt road and nothing. That's it.
And that was five days up,five days after last same day he was
reported missing. In fact, hiscar was found before he was reported missing,
back in a couple hours before,but nobody knew he was missing,
(13:07):
at least the authorities didn't know hewas missing yet. Okay, gotcha.
So Devantae's jeep was found in thisjust middle of nowhere road in the early
morning hours, sometime between one thirtyand four thirty in the morning by somebody
who was going to work at oneof the mines. It was unlocked.
Still inside the car were his keys, a laptop, and two cell phones.
(13:31):
They also end up finding some kindof illegal drugs and it seems like
it was cannabis or marijuana, doesn'tspecify. Marijuana is illegal in DC,
it's not legal in Wyoming. Thereis nothing else. There are no footprints
going away from the car. Thereis no sign of a scuffle. There's
nothing but just this unlocked park jeepwith this guy's possessions still inside. So
(13:56):
DeVante's family members when contacted by Angela, a lassiter, she asked him why
was he out there? Did hehave a need or a want to go
to Wyoming? Did he was heinto like what's around there? Archeology or
history or what they say? Theonly thing they can think of is his
(14:20):
passion for music. His social medialisted him as first of all attending a
historically black college in Missouri. Davante'sBlack. He also lists a job in
music promotion and his roles as CEOfor Launched Studios and CEO for Big Blues
Studios, and that second one,at least I'm not sure about Launched Studios,
(14:43):
but Big Blues Studios was he wouldprovide like graphic design and website design
for people in the music industry,and from what I can tell, he
had a couple of clients and hewas kind of getting it off the ground.
He had a performance handle of dRich. If you remember, he
told his cousins he was going togo check on his friend Kanye. So
(15:05):
now we have to actually talk aboutKanye West. I swear in the beginning
when you when you paused for asecond, I almost said something, but
I just felt like it was probablyinappropriate. But now that you brought Ky
did the same thing. So Iwas talking with Angela and I she told
the story and I said, allright, I know for a fact not
many Kanye's in Wyoming, but let'ssee where it's going. And she keeps
(15:26):
talking and I'm like, are wetalking about Kanye West? And She's like,
yes, So we really are okay, because I was going to say
he's looking for Kanye heading West.So Kanye West obviously is a rapper.
He's now called something else. Ican't keep up, like, yee,
right, he's Kanye I guess Ihave no idea I'm gonna say, the
(15:50):
rapper formerly known as Kanye West.Yeah, We'll all remember seeing in the
news that he bought this vast acreagein Wyoming in two thousand eighteen, and
then he bought a second ranch intwenty nineteen. And that second ranch is
what we're talking about here. It'ssixty five hundred acres and it goes right
(16:11):
up against basically right up against Grabeland it's so it's miles away from where
DeVante's abandoned car is found. InJuly of twenty twenty, he has indicated
his intention to go see his friendKanye. He ends up right next to
his ranch, and he's in themusic industry like this is a legitimate possibility
that he is actually DeVante is actuallygoing to see Kanye West at his ranch
(16:33):
in Wyoming, or he's being catfishedby an impersonator. Right, So I've
not seen these, but there wasat least one way interaction between Davante and
the real Kanye on Twitter. Idon't know. I haven't seen documented two
way interaction between the two of them. We'll get back to that. But
(16:55):
in February twenty twenty one, Angelalast he again calls up after repeated attempts
to get a hold of somebody inDC who seems to be in charge of
this whole case, even though Imean the vehicles found in Wyoming, but
DC is one of the agencies handlingthe case. Angela calls up an investigator
with a missing person's unit at DCMetro. The investigator told Angela that DeVante
(17:21):
was apparently manic and delusional when heleft Washington, d C. He drove
thirty hours straight from DC to Wyomingafter sending several tweets to Kanye West,
whom he thought was his friend.The investigator told Angela that in the week
before Davante LEFDC, DeVante had purchaseda large amount of production equipment, music
(17:44):
equipment, which was left behind athis mother's home. DeVante was presumed to
be using cannabis at this time,or some other substance that isn't made clear.
It sounds like they found marijuana inthe car. The police in DC
did pull his GPS history from thegeep and they can see when in the
vehicles in DC, he punches inKanye's ranch address, which they assume he
(18:11):
found on the internet, and theycan watch the car as it follows the
route all the way west pretty muchNonStop for two seventy three miles or thirty
hours. He stopped only for fuel, they say, And according to this
investigator in DC, the jeep's GPStook Davante to this area, this remote
area, on these roads, thesemining roads, where police believe he eventually
(18:34):
became lost or disoriented. They thinkhe was coming down off his substances at
the time, which were found insidethe car. So he's exhausted, he's
maybe under the influence to some degree. He's in the dark, he has
no idea where he is. Hecan't see anything. They say, he
was confused. He's outside the rangeof cell service that's one hundred percent verified,
(18:56):
so we can't call for help.And he walks away from the g
with all of his stuff, includinghis cell phones inside, leaves the jeep
unlocked, and then walks off beforeeventually dying in the desert. This is
where DC Metro is coming from.They documented no actual relationship between Davantay and
Kanye West, and to my knowledge, there is no documented relationship for those
(19:18):
wondering if Kanye is a suspect here, especially given his recent behavior. Kanye
has not been contacted by DC Metroas of early twenty twenty one, but
the Big Horn County Sheriff's Department hassaid that his security team was interviewed and
the office does not believe that Davantayever made it to the property. I
(19:41):
should mention this road that his caris found on. I mean, the
GPS isn't far off. It's aprivate mining road, but at some point
it does become Kanye's private road.It goes onto his property, so he
was on the right road to tryto go to that ranch. He apparently
hasn't been interviewed Kanye himself. Hissecurity team has and they never saw him.
They say they don't think he evergot there. This is creepy.
(20:04):
It's bizarre, isn't it? Likethere are cases that we cover the you
know, give you chills, butthis one, I don't know why,
but it's just given me, yeah, really bad vibes. What is he
doing? Yeah, is my questionsearch efforts for Davante. There was some
kind of search done for him,but Angela did a pretty good job on
(20:26):
this too. She knows for afact there were searches conducted. She can't
find any records. A member ofthe South Big Horn Search and Rescue told
the media quote, we spent thebetter part of the fall of twenty twenty
out there, using a helicopter,drones, riding on horseback, walking on
foot. We found nothing. Thework that's been done by her, she
talks to the people that were onhorseback, and she audits the logs of
(20:51):
the sa r out there, andshe can't collaborate any of this. But
there are also news accounts of thesearch that's being done for Davante, like
with helicopters, So obviously it happened. We're just not sure how many or
how often. At least once cadaverdogs were brought in. This is about
two months after DeVante's disappearance, sothe car has gone, the scene is
(21:12):
two months cold, and the cadaverdog did not indicate to any presence of
decomp at the area. The BigHorn County Sheriff's Department actually went out and
said at some point that they areconfident DeVante is not within six miles of
the location of his jeep, whichif you draw big circle, will take
you just about to the edge ofGray Bol. So they're basically saying between
(21:36):
here and gray Bol he is notwhat they're basing that off of how many
searches, how thorough can't be documented. The Bighorn County Schriff's Department has been
asked by DC Metro, according toBHCs, to not release any information about
the case. They say in orderto preserve the integrity of the investigation.
There are multiple illusions or outright statementsbetween this Wyoming Sheriff's Department and DC Metro.
(22:02):
They're not on the same page atthe very minimum. If you're read
between the lines, you might inferthat they're not getting along at certain points
in the investigation. But they're certainlynot on the same page. And I
think some of that's just culturally geographical. For example, when Devonte when his
car was found and authorities in Wyomingare on the plates in DC, DC
Metro says, can you give usan address of where this jeep was found?
(22:27):
The Big Horn County s Sheriff's Departmentis like, we don't have addresses.
I think one person said they tooka four way photo looking north,
southeast and west and they sent itto the investigator in DC and said,
from where should we get the address? So that's the kind of very sarcastic
and not helpful. Right. Wyomingis looking at DC saying, you guys
(22:48):
have no idea what you're talking about. You've never been to Wyoming. And
DC is looking at Wyoming like thisis a Barney Fife po dunk police Department
and it who have just gone fromthere? That's my interpretation. Angela herself
has traveled the area hanging hundreds ofmissing posters that were produced by the DC
(23:10):
Metro Police Department. She also madeChristmas cards for DeVante's family. The cards
have his photo and the words thosewe love don't go away. They walked
beside us every day, unseen,unheard, but always near, still loved,
still missed, and forever dear.And she sent those to the family.
(23:30):
It's very nice. Family members describedDeVante's kinds, caring, loves his
family, has a passion for music. We have a copy of a missing
flyer from DC at Status Spending podcastdot com and we've got the irrelevant info
for investigators with both the Wyoming Sheriff'soffice there and DC Metro Police. Sources
include NBC four in DC, ofcourse, Angela Laster's excellent research for fines
(23:55):
nine one, the Level Wyoming Chronicle, the Sheridan, Wyoming Press, County
ten dot com, my new employer, and the Grable Standard. That is
the story this week. Oh mygod, so much going on here,
so many questions. I mean,I feel like they've probably investigated all of
these questions, all of these angles, but I just wondering mindes want to
(24:17):
know, maybe was he ever theperson in the car who entered the GPS
for that address, Like, didhe ever for sure leave DC? Do
we have any surveillance footage of himat gas stations along the way, because
it seems like there weren't any pitstops other than gas stations. He didn't
veer off track at all. Isit a possibility that his car was dumped?
(24:37):
There was this planned out ahead oftime? See, you have cooboration
from his communication or at least hisphone to his cousins that he's going off
to meet Kanye. But when wasthe last time his cousins had seen him
before they Oh, I'm not sureabout the cousins, but I think he
was seen earlier that same day beforehe left, So I I see where
(25:00):
they're coming from with a manic thing. I think it fits where he feels
like he knows Kanye. He hasconvinced himself, and as you pointed out,
at the height of COVID, wheneverybody's brain is a little bit twisted.
Anyway, if there is any diagnosedor undiagnosed mental illness happening here,
it's easy. It's an easy out. But it does explain almost everything except
(25:23):
the timeline. If he's reported missingor his car has first found five days
after he's last seen and he's drivingthirty hours NonStop according to GPS data,
we have two and a half atleast days that are unaccounted for. Yeah,
he might have gone missing right awayand the car just wasn't found for
a couple of days. Certainly possiblewhere this jeep was found or there are
(25:48):
unaccounted for spaces in the timeline inGrabele, but I don't think so,
because the DC investigator told Angela thatthey followed the GPS to where it took
him to try to get to thisremote ranch, and so they can see
when he's moving, and they cansee for how long. So something tells
(26:10):
me they know that the timeline moreor less fits in the car, just
wasn't found for an additional, say, forty eight hours. So stemming off
of your information about a possible manicepisode and diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness,
especially during the height of COVID,we saw that it affected a lot of
people. So COVID in and ofitself could have definitely exacerbated any type of
(26:33):
mental illness that he had. Iagree with that one hundred percent. However,
if he went on this trip andhe put this address in his GPS,
he had this communication on his phone, what would make him leave his
devices in his car? They're prettyadvanced these days. But if there isn't
service like cell phone service, wouldthe car have the ability to still have
(26:56):
the GPS working if you don't havelike on start or something like that.
If not, maybe he got lostout there, couldn't figure out how to
get to the destination because the GPScut out, he didn't have service on
his phone, And what if hegot out and just started walking and something
happened to him. Yeah, that'sthe only other thing I can think.
(27:18):
I think the manic and intoxicated theoryworks. And the reason why is because
it's July. So if he getsout there in the middle of the night,
it was about probably sixty I thinksixty four degrees in the middle of
a night in July. In thattemperature, in that state, you might
say, I got to be closeto something, and you get out and
(27:40):
you walk. We've talked in pastepisodes about that's hypothermic temperatures. If it's
windy, you can get hypothermia atsixty plus degrees, if the conditions are
right and you're addressed a certain way. His trip doesn't seem planned out in
terms of the equipment, the gearthat you might need even in the summertime
Wyoming. And then if you survivethroughout the night, which he easily could
(28:03):
have, and the longer he survives, the bigger the radiuses where he's wandering
into nothing but the summer is goingto kill you. Two it's now ninety
five ninety seven degrees, it's dry, but it's still hot. You have
no water under those conditions, nightand day. It would take you probably
three and a half days at theabsolute most just to begin to succumb to
(28:26):
lack of water, to say nothingof temperature. That is a plausible scenario.
However, if the timeline is verifiedthrough GPS up until that point,
like time and date stamped, thendisregard this. This guy's going to stick
out like a sore thumb in Wyoming, and you have the opportunity if he
arrived there in thirty straight hours andthen is out and around for an additional
(28:51):
even twelve after that, he couldrun into the wrong kind of person who
knows this guy ain't from around herekind of thing, and fall victim to
some other scenario certainly possible in Wyoming. The third scenario, the first one
that's brought up. You know,when this case went public, the coverage
it did receive, is this guy'sgoing out to see Kanye West. Kanye's
(29:12):
obviously a strange guy, and thereforeKanye had something to do with this.
There's no evidence that Kanye West everwas aware of DeVante's existence, let alone
anything more severe, So I thinkcolumn Ay or Columby is more likely.
I tend to lead more toward whereDC is at. You can get yourself
in a whole bunch of trouble if, for example, your GPS took you
(29:34):
there and you ran out of gas, at which point you don't have cell
service anyway, so you leave bothcell phones in the car. Maybe that's
an inebriated decision. Maybe that's anexhausted decision, not smart, but maybe
that's what happened. It's been broughtup to me that this guy is from
DC Metro. He is going tolock his vehicle. I don't care where
(29:55):
it's parked. I don't know ifI believe that either, especially considering his
potential state of ostution and or inebriation. It is something to consider. This
guy is a fish out of water, though, that I know one hundred
percent. So however he ended upwherever he is now, he got in
over his head. And that couldbe because he walked away from his jeep.
(30:15):
It could be because something happened tohim twelve twenty four hours before that.
Now question about the jeep, becauseI mean, definitely that would make
sense if he ran out of gasand tried to get out and see if
he could find help or whatever thecase. But couldn't they tell that when
they found the car, whether ornot it ran out of gas, they
could, but they haven't said,and I'm not sure anybody's asked. I
(30:37):
mean, that's logical assumption. Numberone is he ran out of gas.
DC Metro kind of said he walkedaway from his car, which we can
infer from that that he had somegas in his tank. It's not a
firm assumption, but I think that'dbe the first thing they would put in
their theory. I mean, Iassume there was gas in the tank,
but almost like he was driving alongthe way and then somebody you spotted him,
(31:00):
stopped him. Hey what are youdoing here? Oh hey, I'm
coming to meet Kanye. Oh here, jump in. I'll give you a
ride. It's tricky to get therekind of thing. Or you stop at
a bar, or you stop itwhatever. But is there a bar out
there in that rock? Like?No, do we even know? What's
only six miles away from Gray Bowl. But the problem is, like if
you park and walk away like theythink he did, you have to pick
(31:21):
within five degrees of three hundred andsixty degrees. You have to be right
within five degrees in order to hitsomething in six miles. Otherwise you're just
going to walk forever. He couldhave easily traveled a man his age in
that time of year, he couldhave traveled twenty miles before he eventually secam.
See this is just really scary stuff. And it maybe because I'm a
(31:42):
female and paranoid about everything anyway,but like this is why I don't like
to travel alone. And when Itravel alone, I make sure my tank
is full and I have enough gasto get straight to where I'm going.
I don't stop at all, evenif I need to stop, I wait
until I get to the end locationbecause I am terrified of something just wild
like this happening. Yeah. I'mnot a fan of like saying live in
(32:07):
fear, but I do know thatwhen stuff starts to happen, when that
first domino falls, you get inturble real quick. Yeah, let's see,
if you're by yourself, if you'rein a place you'd never been before,
you could drop me in his situation, say out of gas and that
jeep and I'll survive. But there'sa chance I might not, you know,
like, especially if you're a middleaged, inebri and middle aged.
(32:30):
If I'm not running anywhere, ifyou're inebriated, if you have some diagnosed
or otherwise mental illness, of factoringin, he is out of his element.
And I'm not saying this is agood thing. But a black person
in Wyoming who's clearly from out oftown without a state plates driving a pretty
nice car talking about Kanye west House, I could easily see that going south
(32:53):
in the right situation. So I'mnot going to rule that out, especially
the way the car was left.Do you look at that car, Yes,
it could have run out of gas. The way it's sitting there,
it looks like a ghost car,but it almost looks dropped. And then
you've got a population of people,local workforce who's familiar with the mining roads.
They know where to leave a car, they know where to put a
(33:14):
body. There are tons of placesto hide a body that you'd never find
it, just as there are aton of places where he could walk to
that he'll probably never be found,even if he just went missing on his
own. And what kind of animalsare out there like in that that area,
Coyotes, there's some scavenger predation.We're not talking, but yeah,
(33:37):
it's not that. It's not thewilderness, it's the terrain. It's just
unforgiving and it's endless. Right.But if you're already like down on your
luck. Maybe you haven't had foodor water or anything for however many hours,
like you could be coyote food.You know, he's already dehydrated,
because everybody is when they're driving acrossthe country. And he doesn't leave that
(34:00):
car with a water bottle, ifhe didn't leave without a cell phone,
so he has no water. Yeah, he's in trouble as soon as he
loses sight of that car in thedark, especially, he's just about done.
For those two scenarios I think arethe most likely. But what Angela
brought up to me, which iswhy I thought we should bring it on
the podcast. And this is true. It's not covered. It was a
(34:21):
little bit nationally covered, this onethat she said, only because of Kanye,
only because he he's mentioned as partof the story, this guy going
missing. The other two cases arenot covered in Wyoming statewide, hardly at
all, and that's because there's nolocal news in Wyoming. And DeVante.
You have a marginalized victim who's almostat like the butt of a joke because
this guy got lost trying to findKanye Weston died. And if anyone's ever
(34:45):
heard of this case, that's allthey've ever heard about this guy, and
then we like to refocus and beardown on someone may well have done something
to this guy, but even ifnot, he got lost and he spent
long, grueling hour walking for hislife trying to survive, and eventually he
died. One of those two thingshappened, and either way, he should
(35:07):
be remembered as a missing person andpeople should be aware of the fact that
he's missing, absolutely, And Ifeel like that happens way too often.
Like that, there are so manycases that are brushed under the rug because
they don't have I don't know,we've talked about it before. The victimology
basically is the reason. Yeah,guy from DC goes missing. That's barely
(35:30):
ever a headline because bad things happenedto guys in DC all the time.
It's just a very high crime area. I mean, this one jumps off
the page because he's going to visita famous person in the middle of nowhere.
But nobody looks beyond that more orless forgotten about it. And it's
only been three years. Yeah,i'd never heard of it. You even
said like I might have heard ofit before, never King Well, and
(35:52):
when you first mentioned his name.I was like, Okay, cool,
somebody else has that name, LikeI didn't even think of No, it's
a pretty common name, Wyoming.Yeah. Right, all the infos and
the show notes and we actually havethe post up or we will by the
time it's in the feed at Stataspending podcast dot com. I've got that
ready with photos of DeVante as wellas this area where he went missing,
(36:15):
just so you can see the expanseas we talked about and all the pertinent
info with that, We thank everybodyfor listening. Thanks for our Patreon supporters.
We had a very nice couple ofthings I should mentioned. We got
a new Patreon supporter and we alsogot a very nice iTunes review about Yeah,
(36:35):
how about that? How can Ifinancially support the show? And that
might be our new Patreon supporter forall I know, for all the reasons
that we do it, and weappreciate that there are a few of you
out there, but listen, andthanks to you for listening. We will
talk to you again next Friday.
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