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Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your host, [music] Ann Marie Green, and today we're discussing Michaela Mayavi, who was
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first reported missing by her husband, Frank Buyers, in 2023. Now, he told police that his wife had gone out on a
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date with another man, saying that they had an open marriage, but then she never
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returned from that date. An extensive search was launched and Lieutenant Dakota Black, a tracker and detective
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with the Podawani County Sheriff's Office was brought in on this case. So, joining me now is 48 hours correspondent
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Peter Vans who reported on this episode. Peter, it's always great to see you. >> Hi, Anarie. Great to be with you again.
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And of course, we want to remind uh the viewers and listeners, if you haven't listened to uh this episode of 48 hours,
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you can find it in your podcast feed, the full audio version of it. So, go take a listen, then come on back for
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this conversation cuz we got questions. Um and Peter has the answers. So, Peter,
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Michaela and Frank Buyers, they're living in a small rural town of Mcome, Oklahoma. Uh, Lieutenant Dakota Black
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described the area as beautiful and serene, and it certainly looks that way, but also said there are a lot of dark
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secrets that live there, too. What did she mean by that? >> Well, it's hard to believe, but Oklahoma
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has the highest rate of domestic violence of any state in the country. And Dakota Black told us she in her own
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life has experienced violence in a relationship. And while Mcome only has a population of less than 30, and keep in
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mind Michaela, Frank, and the girls, they make up 20% of the population of Mcome, uh, it's near an intersection of
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multiple interstate highways. And Dakota Black said criminals moving through the
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area are known to dump victims bodies there. And there are people living in Podawatami County in poverty. there.
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Some are off the grid with no electricity or or running water, toilets, or even a roof over their head.
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There are some drug problems and uh it's an open carry state. A lot of people have firearms. And Lieutenant Black said
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they have missing people that are never found, homicides that are never solved. And I do want to say that while the
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sheriff's office there is small, they serve this large rural county with distinction and professionalism and they
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were outstanding in their efforts to find Michaela. >> That's the impression that I got just
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from watching the hour. Like they just seem so on point and so um unbiased and completely focused on like where the
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evidence is driving them. >> That's right. >> So let's talk a little bit about Michaela and Frank's relationship. um
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they were old high school classmates. They did not date in high school, but then many years later, out of the blue,
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Frank contacts her on Facebook and they start a relationship. Um they are married in 2022 and it's a large blended
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family because Michaela, she already has two kids. Frank has four of his own daughters. But was Michaela's family
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worried about the relationship that she had with Frank? Because there must have been red flags.
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>> Yeah. Her sister Andrea said that at the beginning of this relationship, Frank
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was a romantic person. One time he left rose petals in the bathtub, but that didn't last long. According to the
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family, Michaela couldn't have kids of her own, but she had such a maternal gene. and her family believes that these
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four kids that Frank had were a really draw for her more than Frank himself. Um, detectives believe that Frank used
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those young girls, his four daughters, to lure Michaela in. He told her that they had been abused by his then
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girlfriend. And investigators would later determine that that was all a lie and a tactic he used to convince other
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women to be with him as well. You might say it was Frank's business model and it
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worked. M what a way to describe it. >> And um her mother Barbara and her sister
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Andrea say that they saw bruises on Michaela, but Michaela said they were just from roughousing with the kids and
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the family believed her at the time. And looking back now, the family wished they
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had questioned her more about those bruises. According to Barbara and Andrea, he was also a compulsive liar.
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And Frank had this pattern of cheating, lying, and Michaela had left at least once. Let him know that's it. I'm not
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going to deal with this anymore. But she came back. She always felt because of this devotion she had to those four
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children that she couldn't leave them just in Frank's hands. Michaela's sister Andrea said that they were headed for
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divorce and Michaela had temporarily moved to another structure on the property. But then on September 15th,
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2023, Michaela returns home from work, intending to pick her things up and leave for good. But she was never seen
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alive again. Frank then reports Michaela missing in the afternoon of September 16th, and the responding officer, Deputy
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Dustin Richardson, went to the buyer's property to check it out. Typically, police will wait longer than just a few
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hours for a missing person's report. But why did Richardson decide to investigate this one, you know,
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relatively quickly? >> Yeah, investigator Richardson, his instincts right away told him this just
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isn't adding up. He listened to Frank on the 911 call and also spoke to Frank on
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the phone and he just had a hunch that something seemed off. And when he got there, Frank launched into his
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explanation as if he had a story planned out in in Richardson's mind that the last time he saw Michaela, she was
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leaving to go on a date with a bald man in a white truck. And Frank also claimed
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that they had an open marriage. And he said that they agreed to this arrangement to try to fix their
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marriage. >> And we hear on Deputy Richardson's uh body camera footage that he thought
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Frank Buyers was squirly. You know, as a audience member, I kind of went through
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like, what does that word mean to me when I hear somebody squirly? I think of them as kind of like a fast talker.
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Someone's got an answer to everything, but nothing's adding up. >> Squirly is a great word. Uh, and it just
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means you can't trust him. There's something about him that's just not right. >> And, uh, and that's what what he picked
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up on right away. >> Right. So, he goes to the school where she works, where Michaela works as, um,
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a teacher's aid. And then he goes back to the buyer's property and Frank at this point has smashed open the lock to
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the structure where Michaela was living temporarily when she sort of like moved out of the first structure cuz she
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doesn't want to be with him. Um, this is all starting to look kind of more and more suspicious to Richardson.
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What is it that is bothering him? Well, Richardson asked Frank if he had a gun because they had discovered some
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shell casings inside Michaela's shed where she lived. And Frank said yes, and he shows the gun to Richardson. Well,
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Richardson noticed he was able through his training to tell that the gun had been recently fired. And Frank told him
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that, well, these shell casings on the floor of Michaela's shed were from Michaela, get this, shooting at coyotes
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on the property. He claimed she would sit inside her shed with the door open and and and fire at coyotes, which was
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ridiculous to her family because she hated guns. >> And uh the shell casings were found that
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they were going in a direction that showed that the shooter was not firing outside of her shed, but rather into the
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shed, which told Richardson, "We may have a homicide scene here." >> Right. this guy's something's off about
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what he's telling police. So, this missing person's investigation pretty quickly turns into a criminal
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investigation. There's a massive search that's launched. And we are introduced to Lieutenant Dakota Black. She's
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leading the charge. She is a detective, but she's also a tracker. What exactly is a tracker? Well, Dakota Black told us
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that she is trained to look for signs that a normal detective might not see. Uh, she found people in all kinds of
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places like trees and houses that didn't belong to them. And she's trained to use
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her power of observation to look for the little clues like evidence that someone
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had once been through an area, details that others might miss, helping to locate missing people, fugitives or
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suspects. People always think of a tracker too from the old cowboy movies and saying, "Yes, someone was just here
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45 minutes ago." True. She's not that precise, but she's close and she has a way about her that she notices things
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that others don't. >> Well, listeners may also associate the term with a CBS show that we have called
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Tracker starring uh Justin Hartley. He's a sort of a bit of a lone wolf, this character. Lone wolf wolf for hire. Um
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but Lieutenant Dakota Black is not. He's an essential part of a team at the county sheriff's office, right, Peter?
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>> Absolutely. Cops have always told me, you know, that they stay emotionally detached, sort of like a doctor treating
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a patient, but Dakota Black keeps her heart right on her sleeve, and that extra caring, that devotion really works
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for her. And during one interview with producer Liza Finley, Dakota Black teared up. She cried as she thought
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about the horrors that Michaela went through and how in her own life she had been threatened. I had never seen this
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level of emotion from a law enforcement detective ever in my career. And that passion pushed and pushed her to get
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this case solved. >> And as I understand it, Dakota's whole team was kind of singing her praises.
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>> Absolutely. Her colleagues, they have so much respect for her. Dakota Black is a
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woman in her early 30s and she's working with a lot of male colleagues. Um, some
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of whom uh she's in charge of. And she said, "You can ask all the guys. They call me a cool dude with long hair
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because I'm meaner than any of them and they know to listen to me." And Dakota Black brings her own dog, Haven, to
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serve as a comfort dog to victims and for herself. if they ever make a TV show about her. Here's a detective with a
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comfort animal in her office. And we have Dakota Black talking about her dog, Haven.
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>> Um, she works with victims of um, homicides. She also works with victims of domestic violence and sexual assault
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and then as well as with children. And she works with a lot of victims every year. Her first year we had her, she
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worked with over 300 victims. They can cry on her, they can love on her, they can hug her. Um sometimes she will lick
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them, you know. Um but she just provides comfort for them and that's what [clears throat] her name represents,
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which is a safe place. So that's what she does for our victims and she does a good job.
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>> I was really struck by the professionalism and the humanity of this whole team in Podawatami County. Dustin
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Richardson had been working at the sheriff's office for only four years at the time of Michaela's case. And because
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of his great work, he was recently promoted to detective. And the under sheriff is Marcus May. He's a terrific
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guy. And then the sheriff, Freeland Wood, who runs all of this, introduced himself at the shoot and said he was so
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happy that 48 was covering this story. I'm telling you, the Podawatami County Sheriff's Office has a peer support
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group to help police, first responders deal with the trauma that they experience on the job. and they told us,
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"We see things that no one should have to see." And that weighs very heavy on them. [music] So, it's a tiny sheriff's
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department with a big heart and a lot of very professional, seasoned investigators cuz they've got a lot on
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their hands in this rural county. Welcome back. As search efforts were underway with dozens of people turning
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out to try to find Michaela, there's one person who's absent. It's her husband, Frank Buyers. After Michaela had been
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missing for 5 days, she was found in a large drainage pipe under a road and she is wrapped in a carpet. Investigators
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quickly zero in on Frank Buyers as the primary suspect. Meanwhile, Frank continues to spin his narrative of being
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the grieving husband and he actually goes on TV. So, I want to play a clip from a TV interview that that he did
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with a local uh Fox affiliate, Fox 25. Just take a listen to this. >> Even today, I called her. I mean,
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[snorts] I know she's not here, but it's just a fact that I have her number still and her phone still on somewhere
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and uh it just it would have been nice just to hear her voice. You know, Peter, I was looking to see if I was seeing any
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real tears coming out of those eyeballs of his because often, you know, often sometimes people make crying noises, but
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they're not actually crying, right? Yeah. This is one heartless, uncaring, phony. Uh this uh emotion that he had
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there was all fake. He had crocodile tears that didn't really flow. Um Frank was so comfortable lying on TV. He says
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her phone's still on somewhere, but in reality, he had her phone the whole time before investigators took devices into
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evidence, so he knew exactly where it was. >> So, you know, days turn into weeks.
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There's no arrest. Michaela's family, they are livid. Frank is still walking around. So, I'm really curious, what
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sort of evidence were investigators looking for before they felt comfortable making an arrest?
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>> They wanted a piece of forensic evidence that would leave no doubt that Frank was
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the killer. And Lieutenant Dakota Black told us towns people knew it was Frank, but investigators needed to find that
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beyond a reasonable doubt kind of evidence. So, they started digging into Frank's social media, and there was a
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treasure trove of information there. He had multiple dating profiles and multiple Facebook accounts. They found
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comments from from women with screenshots on text messages with Frank. And one disturbing find, Frank was
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actually texting other women on the day of Michaela's murder. Even on the day of
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her funeral, Frank sent a photo of himself to multiple women asking something along the lines of, "How do I
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look in my tuxedo?" They also tracked down another girlfriend he had assaulted, and she said he used the same
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tactic on her with the story of Frank's four daughters being abused. So, they found lots of stuff that really told
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them about how this man operates, >> right? And we see in the hour something else that they found. Um they recovered
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footage from a home security camera. And really, I mean, detectives believe that
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this is sort of the last that anyone would have seen of Michaela. >> Yeah. I'm telling you, technology now is
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solving so many of these cases. Um, investigators were never able to find the actual physical security camera that
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recorded these images, but Frank used an app on his phone to view the images, and
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he thought, according to investigators, that he had deleted them. But when investigators did the forensic
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extraction on Frank's phone, they were able to find these images. The first image you see is Michaela coming into
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his home, and she's there for about 14 minutes. The next image we see her leaving the home. The last image is
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Frank standing at his door looking out like he was about to follow Michaela back to the shed where she was living
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where investigators believe he confronted her and shot her. >> Investigators also used a Walmart
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receipt to track down security camera photos. Frank Buyers is seen buying bleach, ammonia, a mop, and according to
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Dakota Black, all of this looks like a possible, you know, toolkit to clean up a crime scene.
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>> I mean, go to Walmart and buy all those things. Frank even called the police while he was at that Walmart buying
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those cleaning supplies. >> And then there's also the carpet, right? And what um investigators find out is
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that the carpet that Michaela was wrapped up in, that was a carpet that a neighbor had given to the couple for
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their dogs. Um so the evidence is adding up here, but they had hopes that a specific bullet that was found embedded
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in Michaela's wall would also test positive for her DNA. >> That's right. And they weren't able to
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get a a genetic confirmation on hair that was stuck to that bullet, but a dark substance that was found on Frank's
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boots was Michaela's blood. That's when they went in for the arrest. >> 38 days after Michaela was reported
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missing, Frank Buyers is arrested and he's charged with firstdegree murder. His defense, though, negotiates a deal
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to take the death penalty off the table. Then 15 months later, he agreed to plead
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guilty and serve life without parole. Michaela's mother really feels like this is a copout because he chose to take
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Michaela's life and then he gets to choose his own punishment. >> And I understand Barbara's frustration
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with the death penalty being taken off the table. Moving forward, they have now turned their grief, the family, into a
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charity. They have started Michaela's Purple Butterfly nonprofit to fight against domestic violence and they
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raised money by selling handmade crafts made by women affected by domestic violence to build transition housing for
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victims. And once 48 hours learned of Michaela's case, we really wanted to honor her by telling this story.
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>> Well, you absolutely did. Um, what I kept on thinking over and over again was
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just how remarkable she was in her daytoday life. She was transforming the lives of his daughters, her own
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children, the children at school. And I think about all that was lost, the future impact that she would have had
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because of one selfish person's actions, >> right? She was a guardian angel to those
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four kids. And when Frank took her life, he really impacted theirs so profoundly.
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And we wish the best for those children. >> Yeah. And you know, once again, just
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spotlight on domestic violence. Those red flags, that gut feeling, listen to them. It may end up saving, you know,
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your life or the life of somebody that you love. Um, Peter Vansen, always lovely having you here. Thank you
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[music] so much. >> Thank you, Emry. And to our listeners, if you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple
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Podcast or Spotify. [music]