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At [music] first glance, when you come to this area in Oklahoma, it is very beautiful. It's serene, but we have
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missing people that are never found. There are homicides that are never solved. There's lots of dark secrets
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that live here. My [music] name is Dakota Black. I'm a tracker and detective with the Pawatami
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County Sheriff's Office and I was brought into the missing person's case for Michaela Mi
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and as soon as we arrived on scene we started tracking the area and trying to locate her.
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We had multiple deputies and detectives in the woods looking for her. We were searching every place that we
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could potentially think of to try to locate [music] Michaela. >> There's something strange.
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>> She might be in there. She might be. She may not be alive. >> I was not looking for an individual that
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was breathing. I was looking for my daughter's body. And I don't know why. >> Sometimes it's hard to not take cases
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personal. They tug at your heartstrings. And this one was one of those. What was it about [music] this woman
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that fueled you this way? >> Just who she was? [music] >> My sister Michaela is the strongest
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person I know. Has the biggest heart. Is the most caring. Wants to take care of everyone and put everyone before
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herself. >> I love you. [music] >> I love you most. >> I love you more. >> Her main goal in life was to be around
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children, to help children, especially ones in need. >> [music] >> Everybody that knew Michaela had nothing
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but love for her. We had a huge response from our community. Everybody really wanted her
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family. >> We just went out there looking for her. Didn't sleep for days. Didn't eat for
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days. Was raining cold. We were just out there for days. >> Was there a part of you that say, you
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know, there's a chance we may not find her? >> Yes. It seemed day after day the chances were
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getting more slim of finding her alive. >> I just knew that [music] she was gone.
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>> I can't imagine how scared she was. It's just sad. Sad that it ended the way it did.
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[music] It didn't have to end this way. I was driven and I was not going to go home. I was not going to stop until this
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case was solved. >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> the guys at The sheriff's office call
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her a cool dude with long hair because they say she's meaner than any of them in the gun range and in the field.
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>> That fence that's hanging, I had to go underneath that into the water. >> Her name is Lieutenant Dakota Black.
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She's a trained tracker and detective with the Padawatami County Sheriff's Office in Shaunie, Oklahoma. I go out to
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scenes when there's manhunts or trying to locate individuals. >> Her specialty is finding the missing,
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whether alive or dead. I have found them underneath piles of leaves and trees and
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abandoned homes, sheds. I've found them pretty much in any area you can think of. Often by her side, her partner,
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Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog [music] for kids and other family members caught in the crossfire of
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tragedy. Haven provides comfort and consolation, a consoling presence she herself would rely on in the coming
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months as she embarked on one of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career. >> This case will stay with me forever and
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it will be one that I always remember through my whole life because of how cruel it was.
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The last thing [music] we said to each other was, "I love you." >> Friday, September 15th, 2023 began like
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most days for Andrea Mayavi, with a 7 a.m. phone call from her best friend and younger sister, Michaela.
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>> I wish I would have known. I would have said so much more. I'm grateful for that. At least I said I
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love you. >> The next morning, Saturday the 16th, the phone rang as usual around 7:00 a.m.
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Only this time, it wasn't Michaela. It was Michaela's husband, Frank Buyers. >> He's hysterical, crying, screaming, can
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barely understand what he's saying. And he says Michaela didn't come home last night.
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He ended up telling me that Michaela went on a date the Friday night before with a bald man in a white truck.
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They left and she never came home last night. At the time, Michaela and Frank were
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headed for divorce, says Andrea. They were still living on the same 10acre property in Mcome, Oklahoma, but in
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separate homes. So, at first, Andrea wasn't worried. >> My first thought is she's single. I hope
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she had fun. >> But Andrea's mood began to shift when her many calls to Michaela went to
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voicemail. >> By noon, I was worried. And 1:00, I was really worried. >> Their mother, Barbara Harper, was also
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anxious. Michaela was supposed to help out at the family restaurant that afternoon, but she didn't show and
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hadn't called. Unheard of for Michaela. And the more I prayed about it, the more
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I realized that something serious had happened. >> Frank also reported Michaela [music]
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missing to the Podawatami County Sheriff's Office that afternoon. >> My wife's been missing since late last
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night. She left at 5:30 and last time that anyone has heard from her has been at 8:00 p.m.
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>> And your name? My name is Frank Buyers. B Y R S. >> What's her name? >> Her name is Michaela Buyers.
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>> The deputy on duty, Dustin Richardson, felt he needed to put eyes on the ground. He got to MCOME around 400 p.m.
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His body cam rolling. >> He'd given me the information over the phone, but I just wanted to see where
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she was coming from and and see more of the details. Frank made a point of showing the deputy
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the last Facebook message he said Michaela sent him after she left, assuring him she was quote fine and to
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back off. >> Did you see the guy at all? >> Then he told him the story about Michaela driving off with a bald man in
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a white truck. >> So I was 6 and 61. >> Okay. He was completely bald and he had a beard.
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If I if I had a guess of weight, I don't know, maybe 200. >> Deputy Richardson then asked if he could
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see the house where Michaela was temporarily living. >> Can I go take a look around?
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>> So, she's been staying in this little thing. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Locked up. >> But the shedlike home was locked. And
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Frank said he didn't have a key, but he did have something to say about their relationship.
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>> And we have an open marriage where Oh, that's that's a brand new thing. I don't like it, but um I agreed upon it
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cuz I'm trying to fix our marriage. >> At that point, the deputy decided to take a quick drive to the school where
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Michaela worked as a teacher's aid. Maybe she had gone there. What's up, >> man? This uh Frank Buyers called in
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saying his uh wife was missing. >> He called his son, also a deputy, from the car.
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>> This guy is squirly, man. This Frank guy is squirly. >> The sensation was that there is nothing
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about this story that is really true. While the deputy was at the school, friends and family started
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showing up at [music] the property, including Michaela's mom, Barbara. >> When I first got there, I didn't even
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speak to anyone. I was on my hands and knees crawling through [music] brush out in the
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pasture. We've got to find where she's at. >> How are you? This is Deputy Richardson
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with his body camera rolling as he returned to the property late that afternoon.
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Frank had smashed open the lock to Michaela's place with a hammer. >> I looked and I I immediately saw empty
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shell casings from what appeared to be 22 caliber. He told me that she sits in there and shoots out at animals, the
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coyotes and stuff. >> There's a few times I've heard her shoot. By then, more deputies had
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arrived. >> I had asked him where she kept that gun and he said it was in his house.
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>> Is it in there? Now, >> I had him walk me to his house and he walked inside and he pointed at it. I
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had pulled it from where it wasn't there. >> Like always >> and put it in my vehicle.
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>> The gun, according to the deputy, appeared to have been recently fired. >> That's pretty recently.
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I uh made phone calls to u get our criminal investigation team out there because I just it was off. There was
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something that needed to be looked into more. Hey, I'm on that I'm on that missing person thing still. This
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suspicious as >> investigators ushered family and friends off the property and blocked the
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driveway. I remember walking back [music] to my car and just screaming at God, asking him, "Why?
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Why did you do this? Let this happen. [snorts] Just take me. Take me and let us find
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her and just take me." >> The missing person's investigation was now a possible criminal investigation.
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And that's when the call went out to lead detective, Lieutenant Dakota Black. >> We definitely needed to figure out what
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was going on. As [music] soon as Lieutenant Dakota Black got the call that Michaela Mayavi
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was missing, she jumped in her vehicle [music] and sped to Mcome. >> What was your immediate mission?
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>> To locate Michaela. We We needed to locate her. We didn't know where she was.
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>> So, it was 1366. Detective Black and her partner on the case, Detective Marcus
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May, now the under sheriff, put out a bolo alert. >> Be on the lookout. >> It was be on the lookout for a white
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male with a beard, bald head, driving a white truck. We wanted all of the local law enforcement and surrounding agencies
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aware that that we do have a situation developing over here. The tips from this rural area where everyone seems to know
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everybody came pouring in. >> Every white pickup truck with tanned windows was getting called into the
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sheriff's office. >> None of the sightings panned out, but the search took on a life of its own.
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>> Flyers were posted everywhere. Social media ads were everywhere. >> Michaela Miyave was beloved by
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everybody. They were demanding every resource possible to go find Michaela. >> And Dakota, this was a a woman with
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enormous heart. Right. >> Absolutely. She loved her family. She loved her friends. She loved children.
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>> Michaela fell in love with children when she herself was still a child. Her mom,
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Barbara, ran a daycare. >> We weren't [music] just a daycare. We were the family. and she loved those
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kids, especially the babies. >> Sadly, Michaela was unable to have children of her own. But that didn't
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stop her. In her [music] 20s, Michaela fostered and would eventually adopt these two kids, a brother and sister.
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>> She dropped what she was doing, went to and took classes, got certified to make sure that she could give those
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kids a home. She did. Around that time, an old high school classmate named [music] Frank Buyers contacted her out
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of the blue through Facebook. Frank, [music] who was divorced, had primary custody of four young daughters.
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>> Frank was telling her a story that the current girlfriend he was living with was abusing his four daughters. So, my
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sister [music] took him and all four girls in and just started basically taking care of them. She felt like the
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kids needed her and she sure needed them. Probably the happiest I'd seen her in a
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long time with those girls. >> Frank and Michaela got married in 2022. They built their lives together in
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Mcome. Population 24. >> It's just country. It's 100% country. The kids are 100% country.
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Michaela was going to college to get her teaching degree while working at the local elementary school.
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>> When she would stand up for the kids and and if she saw a child that was dirty or
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wasn't taken care of, she would take it to the principal and you know bring awareness to it.
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>> I think that was her biggest thing in life was to help little innocent kids that needed adults help. She always felt
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responsible to do that. Countywide, dozens of people turned out in the cold and pouring rain to slug through mud and
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tickinfested woods in search of their beloved teacher. [music] But one person at the heart of
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this mystery conspicuously appeared not to search. Michaela's husband, Frank Buyers.
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>> He never participated in a single search. He never volunteered to go out with any of the search parties to go out
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and try to find Michaela. >> It wasn't like, "Oh my god, my wife is missing." >> He never seemed like concerned about
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that. He seemed more concerned about himself. >> What were you noticing about Frank
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Buyers? >> The the lack of any human emotion. I mean, he he did not seem scared. He just
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wanted to know what we knew. He just it didn't seem human at all. Investigators were already zeroing in on Frank.
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>> We strongly suspected Frank. >> 3 days after Michaela was reported missing, Frank Buyers agreed to be
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questioned by Detective Black at the sheriff's office. The interview was audio only.
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>> At this time, I just want her found. >> The detective tried to win his trust by
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playing the good cop. >> Again, I couldn't imagine. I mean, it's hard not knowing, you know, and when
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everybody's pointing a finger at you, I'm sure it doesn't make it any better. [snorts]
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>> Yeah. I feel like I got to defend myself and tell everyone that, "No, this is
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what happened. This is the truth." >> She pressed him, but not enough to make him stop talking.
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>> Did you ask her about the date before she left? >> I did, and uh she told me it was none of
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my business. Same thing as if I went on a date, it's none of her business. Okay.
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So, she never said a name or anything. How she met him, how she knew him? >> No.
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>> After answering questions for 2 and 1/2 [music] hours, Detective Black let him
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go home. The search for Michaela continued. Barbara remembers [music] crawling through brush wearing snake
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protectors when she says she had a premonition. [music] >> I heard Michaela tell me, "Mama, I'm in
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a tin horn." And I said, "Oh my god, she just told me she's in a tin horn." [snorts]
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>> Barbara frantically started looking for tin horns, pipes or culverts used to divert water under roads. But there was
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no sign of Michaela. Then [music] came the call to 911 on day five that would prove her mother's
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intuition was right. >> Ma'am, I don't know exactly where I'm at, but I'm on Hamilton Road. I was
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searching with my friend for my cousin. that's missing Michaela Mi >> and I think that we just found her
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The chatter of locust permeated the air, an eerie sense of foroding. Michaela Mayavi [music] had been missing
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for 5 days. >> I got a phone call from my friend and she said, "I need you to sit down."
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[music] And she said, "They found someone and it's a female." And I'm like, is she
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dead or alive? >> Earlier that day, a cousin and her friend had been [music] out searching
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about half a mile from Michaela's house when they were stopped in their tracks by a strong, sickening [music] odor. The
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friend followed the intense smell down a ditch to a tin horn. He saw something sticking out. It was a hand.
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>> I was searching with my friend for my cousin that's missing, Michaela Mi. Mhm.
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>> And I think that we just found her. >> It was the call Detective Dakota Black
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had been dreading. >> It was devastating to everybody. I mean, it was absolutely terrible.
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>> Just as Barbara had imagined, Michaela was in a large drainage pipe beneath the
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road. >> She had been drugged into the middle area and she was wrapped in the carpet.
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Uh, she had one sock on her foot that had teddy bears on it and her shirt was actually pulled up over her face to
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cover it. I mean, it was hard. It was really hard. >> So dark in there. >> Detective Black wouldn't leave
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Michaela's side. The two women had been born one day apart in the same year. But
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that wasn't their only bond. >> I did feel a connection with Michaela. I have a history also. I've been in bad
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relationships. It could have [music] been me on more than one occasion. I just got
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lucky. >> While the detectives were working the scene, Michaela's family gathered just
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up the road. >> You could hear hear them crying up there and they were trying to come down here
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where she was. >> But the crime scene was blocked off. >> I could bar >> please. This ain't
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>> I never once doubted that it was her. >> If anyone goes to the tape without permission, they immediately go to jail.
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I I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. >> Can you tell them we're here? >> Of course. Of course. Okay.
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>> I felt like I needed to see her because she had been out there for 5 days without me
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and I just needed to be with her and they wouldn't let me. She needed me. >> [laughter]
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>> It wasn't there. >> Michaela's remains were placed in the coroner's van for the journey to the
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medical examiner's office. >> My mom and I both realized that it was probably her
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in there and that we would never be able to hold her and hug her again. My mom started to chase the van.
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[laughter] I just followed it down the road just as fast as I could and [snorts] somebody
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hollered at me and asked me what I was doing and I said, "My [snorts] my baby's in that van."
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>> Detective Black was so angry she had to hold herself back. >> I wanted to leave that night and go and
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arrest Frank, but I knew um it's better to move thoroughly than to act quick. The two investigators had already begun
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building a strong circumstantial case against Frank Buyers. The bullet casings in her home.
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His unlikely story that Michaela agreed to an open marriage. >> She wanted to start dating other people
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>> and left with a bald man in a white truck. >> She embraced the guy in a hug and then
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they got in the truck and left. And >> when you asked Michaela's family about this open relationship, what' they say?
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Absolutely not. They said there was absolutely no possible way that Michaela would have ever done that.
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>> Investigators learned from interviews and from Frank's own social media accounts that he was the one who was
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cheating. >> Frank Buyers is the [music] biggest cheater. He was cheating on her as soon
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as he moved in. Every time he would go out of town, he was creating dating profiles.
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Frank worked for an environmental cleanup company cleaning up hazardous materials. He spent a lot of time on the
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road. >> He would meet women at gas stations. He would meet up with them at hotel rooms.
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He would text them while he was home with Michaela and hide it from her. >> He was communicating with females the
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day Michaela was murdered and immediately afterwards. He was sending pictures to women the day of her
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funeral, asking, "How do I look in my tux?" >> Frank's cheating got so bad, Michaela
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moved out about 3 months before her murder. >> She packed a bag and she came and stayed
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with me for a week. I held her where she cried every night. She felt like a failure,
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>> but I wanted to. [laughter] But Michaela's love for the little girls kept drawing her back, says Andrea.
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>> I love you. >> I love you most. >> I love you more. >> I love you more. >> Michaela went back to the 10acre
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property, but not to Frank. She temporarily moved into that little structure behind his to stay [music]
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close to the girls. Frank tried to win her back, promising to change, but the cheating continued. Detective Dakota
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Black would later discover this conversation in which Michaela told [music] Frank she was done.
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>> I've never once been dead set for divorce until today. >> Michaela recorded it 2 days before her
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murder. >> I'm just saying you have have officially lost me. >> Detective Black believes she recorded it
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to expose Frank's infidelity. I'm stating to you right now that you have officially
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broke the last string that was holding me to you. >> Okay? >> And you have nobody to blame but
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yourself for doing it. >> That Friday, September 15th, Michaela returned from work to pick up her things
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and leave for good. But Frank, it seemed, had other plans. Detectives would later recover these images
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captured on a home security camera on his phone. >> Detective Black believes he thought he
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had deleted them. >> Where is Michaela in this picture? >> This is Frank's home and she's coming
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through the front door. >> Michaela stayed for 14 minutes. The detective believes they were [music]
00:25:40
arguing. >> Here's Michaela again. She's leaving. This is the last picture of [music] the
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series. Frank standing at the door of his home. And what do you believe happened [music] after this last
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photograph was taken? >> I think this is when he exited his home and went to her home and killed her. I
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think this is when he killed Michaela. Within minutes, >> Michaela was shot in the head.
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>> Michaela had a gunshot wound right here in the front. [music] She had one on the
00:26:14
left side and then she had a graze wound on the same side. >> The last image she may have seen on this
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earth was her own husband holding a rifle [music] and then the shot fired. >> Yes.
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It started as a simmering anger. >> And I just got to say this because I'm pretty angry.
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>> And grew into a raging fury. People wanted to know why Frank was still walking free.
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>> I'm sorry. The most difficult part was knowing that we were accumulating evidence of Frank's
00:27:04
guilt in Michaela's murder, but we were unable to release that or share that with the public. [music]
00:27:10
>> We knew Frank was guilty. We knew Frank was not a good husband. We knew Frank
00:27:15
was lying. We knew lots of things, but we couldn't prove everything. [music] And I wanted to prove everything to make
00:27:22
sure he stayed in jail. Detective Black spent 18-hour [music] days at the office with her sidekick,
00:27:28
Haven. >> Having here, >> the therapy dog now there for her. Give me a sense emotionally how tough
00:27:35
this was for you. >> It was tough mentally. I was drained. I was mentally exhausted. I had lost
00:27:42
weight. I was tired. But I was not going to go home until this case was solved. >> Frank used the time to defend himself on
00:27:51
social media. I am innocent and everything will come out. >> He also appeared on local news.
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>> Even today I called her. I mean, I know she's not here, but it's just a fact that I have her number
00:28:13
still and her phone still on somewhere and uh it just it would have been nice just to hear her voice.
00:28:20
Many in the community tuned in to watch Frank Byer's interview, including Lieutenant [music] Dakota Black.
00:28:27
>> Did it make you angry? >> It did make me angry. It was sickening to see that a beautiful woman was gone
00:28:33
from the world and that while he's on TV professing his innocence, he's still in
00:28:40
communication with other women, trying to have intimate relationships with them.
00:28:45
>> Detective Black tracked down scores of these women. [music] Crystal Cantrell was Frank's girlfriend before he met
00:28:52
Michaela. >> He's very good at making you believe him. And then he's kind of like a snake.
00:28:58
Once he gets you in there, he bites you. >> Detective Black learned Frank wooed [music] Crystal the same way he wooed
00:29:07
Michaela with a false story that his daughters [music] were being mistreated by his current girlfriend. And like
00:29:14
Michaela, Crystal [music] had a soft heart. I love kids, you know. I have kids of my own. So, I just felt really
00:29:21
bad for them. >> Shortly after they moved in together, Crystal says Frank started to show his
00:29:28
true colors. He isolated her from friends and family and controlled her every move. They fought. One night, she
00:29:38
woke up to see him looming over her, clutching a pair of handcuffs. >> I closed them so he couldn't use them on
00:29:45
me. And then after that, he just got on my back and was choking me. He had wrapped his arms around me and had his
00:29:52
hand on my throat and he [music] just didn't let go. Crystal was able to get away, but was too afraid to report the
00:29:59
incident [music] to the police. She left Frank for good, but says it could have been her in that ditch.
00:30:06
>> He would have killed me. If Frank ever harmed Michaela, she never told her mom and sister. Sometimes they
00:30:17
saw bruises, but Michaela always said they were just from roughousing with the kids.
00:30:26
I think if I think about it too much is where I will go down a dark hole and not come out because I did see the
00:30:36
bruises and I just chose to believe and not question and maybe if I would have questioned it
00:30:45
would come out differently. Bit by bit, [music] Detective Black and her team built a profile of a murderer.
00:30:56
>> So, this photo was taken at Walmart. >> Using the date on a Walmart receipt found on [music] Frank's property, the
00:31:04
detective was able to track down this security camera photo. What's in [music] the cart?
00:31:11
>> There is bleach, ammonia, and a mop. >> And [music] mop, ammonia, and bleach equals what? in your mind as an
00:31:19
investigator. >> Crime scene [music] cleanup. >> They were also able to match the carpet
00:31:25
in the ditch. >> I I'll help you. >> Oh, I got it. >> To one a neighbor had given Frank and
00:31:31
Michaela for their dogs. >> You You gave them that carpet about eight or nine months ago.
00:31:37
Frank took the carpet that was given to him by the neighbor and used that to roll Michaela's body in.
00:31:48
>> They believe Frank killed Michaela around 400 p.m. and left her [music] body in her home. He then picked up his
00:31:55
girls after school and drove them around. returning home about 8:00 p.m. That's when the detectives believe he started
00:32:06
to move her body. >> The kids reported in interviews once they returned home that Frank was
00:32:15
outside most of the night. He he wasn't in his bed. >> Detective Black [music] says there were
00:32:21
fresh tire tracks leading to Michaela's little house. We believe that the tire tracks actually came from a vehicle
00:32:28
backing up to load her body to take it to where she was located. >> The detectives believe Frank drove
00:32:35
Michaela's body to the edge of the ditch, pulled her out, and then let her body topple the 12 to 15 ft to the creek
00:32:44
bed. They believe Frank then climbed down and dragged her into that pipe underneath the roadway.
00:32:54
Once Frank got rid of the body, he concocted a plan to cover up his crime. >> So, she took the phone with her?
00:33:02
>> Yeah. As far as I know, she took her phone with her. >> Remember, he told the deputy that
00:33:06
Michaela had messaged him from her phone that evening, telling him, "Back off." But investigators would later find
00:33:16
Michaela's phone in Frank's bedroom. Detective May confronted Frank in a second interview.
00:33:24
>> So, I'm just trying to understand how if she left with her phone and was communicating with you
00:33:30
through her phone on Facebook, how that phone was in your bedroom. >> I understand.
00:33:35
>> Okay. Um I mean I I don't I mean I I don't have an explanation honestly. >> But investigators did have an
00:33:45
explanation. Michaela had two phones, an iPhone and a Moto G phone. Frank had both of them.
00:33:54
>> The Moto Gone was an old phone of Michaela's that she hadn't been using for quite some time.
00:33:59
>> She just pushed in that hole. It pops the tray out. >> Frank knew how to get into that old
00:34:03
phone. >> So, there's a SIM card for those who don't know. That's what it looks like.
00:34:08
>> So, he switched the SIM card from her iPhone. >> Why does he do that? to gain full access
00:34:14
to all of her accounts. That's how he was texting himself, pretending to be Michaela.
00:34:21
And in fact, it was him the entire time. >> The evidence was mounting, [music] but
00:34:26
they were still waiting on two key pieces of evidence they had sent to the forensic lab for testing.
00:34:34
>> I needed a smoking gun that I knew was not going to let him out. I knew it was
00:34:37
going to keep him there. >> What have you just unwrapped here? This uh what do we have here is the
00:34:43
projectile recovered from the 2x4 inside Michaela's bedroom. >> In addition to the shell casings found
00:34:49
on the floor in Michaela's home, they later found this [music] bullet wrapped in what they believed was Michaela's
00:34:56
hair embedded in the wall. They hoped it would test positive for Michaela's DNA.
00:35:04
And then there were these boots. >> So these are Frank's work boots. They were recovered on the night of the
00:35:10
missing person's report uh from his bedroom. >> And what did you spot on these boots
00:35:16
that was of interest? >> So, we had found a substance that we believed could be blood, but he also
00:35:22
works with lots of chemicals, so we were unsure if that would be something that got on there while he was at work.
00:35:28
>> 38 days after Michaela went missing, they finally got the results. They weren't able to get a genetic
00:35:35
confirmation on the hair, but the boots were a different story. The substance on
00:35:41
Frank's boots was blood. Michaela's blood. >> As soon as we got that, we were like,
00:35:48
"We're going [music] right now." >> You had your man. >> We had our guy. >> Yes.
00:36:11
We were waiting for that arrest. >> So, it moved fast after that. >> It was close to midnight. Flashing
00:36:18
police lights lit up the darkness. 38 days after Michaela was reported missing, Detective Black, Deputy
00:36:26
Richardson, and a special ops team moved in to arrest Frank Buyers. >> I got with the SWAT team, organized the
00:36:35
take down, and went in and got him. >> He's in under arrest. >> He thought he was smarter than everyone,
00:36:47
but he was outsmarted, right? >> Yes. I think he was surprised. I swear I didn't do
00:36:56
>> Lieutenant Black finally had Frank in her grasp [music] and right where she wanted him, in handcuffs, headed to
00:37:03
jail. Detective May called Michaela's family with the news. >> That was a hallelujah moment.
00:37:11
That was about time moment. We couldn't get her back, but we knew he wasn't walking free anymore.
00:37:19
Detective May says they were done with Frank's lies. How you doing, Frank? >> And they confronted him with the hard
00:37:26
evidence they'd taken weeks to gather. >> Now's opportunity to let us know what happened.
00:37:35
I I didn't do it. I mean, >> why was there blood on your boots? >> I mean, I can't answer. I mean, I I I don't I
00:37:45
don't know. me honestly. >> Frank Buyers was charged with firstdegree murder. The DA was seeking the death penalty,
00:37:54
[music] but the defense requested a deal to save his life. 15 months after Byer's arrest,
00:38:02
he agreed to plead guilty and serve life without parole. Michaela's mom was bitterly
00:38:13
disappointed. I feel that the plea deal was a copout. The moment, the second that she took her last
00:38:24
breath, he chose that. And he got to choose what he got for punishment, too. And that's not okay.
00:38:35
It's not okay. >> The plea deal isn't the only thing upsetting Barbara. She doesn't think Frank [music] acted
00:38:44
alone. >> You're absolutely convinced that Frank had somebody help him. >> I'll go to my grave. Believe in that.
00:38:52
>> I think [music] he had to have had an accomplice. I don't think that he could
00:38:56
have moved her body on his own at all. >> Physically, he could not have done it.
00:39:02
>> No, I don't believe so. I think we all agree that it would absolutely be difficult to move her, but people are
00:39:11
scared. They can do amazing things. >> What they're saying is not unreasonable. If the evidence is presented to us one
00:39:18
day that that uh that suggests that we will take it and we'll run with it to its fullest extent.
00:39:28
>> I come and I sit and I look at that place down there. I went down and [music] hung all kinds of crosses and
00:39:35
different things. He didn't [music] just take from us. He took from his own children. Someone that
00:39:46
loved them, that put them first. >> It didn't have to end this way. He could have let her leave,
00:39:54
but he didn't. There's cold justice [music] for Michaela. For detective Dakota Black
00:40:03
Tracker, her painful work continues. Michaela would want her life to mean something.
00:40:14
>> Barbara is starting Michaela's Purple Butterfly Foundation to fight against [music] domestic violence. That was her
00:40:22
goal, her mission in life was when you see someone in need, help them. >> When I think of the Michaela, I think of
00:40:30
sunflowers. I think of joy. >> She would love that though. You know, she would with all those sunflowers.
00:40:43
I sure miss her smile, her laugh. Oh, that laugh was something else. She was my best friend. I strived for
00:40:52
her to be proud of [music] me because I looked up to her even though she was the
00:40:57
little sister. I still lay in bed and talk to her like she's still right there. Like she's watching over us every day.
00:41:40
>> [music] >> Welcome to Postmortem. [music] I'm your host, Ann Marie Green, and
00:42:01
today we're discussing Michaela Mayavi, who was first reported missing by her husband, Frank Buyers, in 2023. Now, he
00:42:10
told police that his wife had gone out on a date with another man, saying that they had an open marriage, but then she
00:42:17
never returned from that date. An extensive search was launched and Lieutenant Dakota Black, a tracker and
00:42:24
detective with the Podawani County Sheriff's Office, was brought in on this case. So, joining me now is 48 hours
00:42:32
correspondent Peter Vans, who reported on this episode. Peter, it's always great to see you.
00:42:37
>> Hi, Anmarie. Great to be with you again. And of course, we want to remind uh the
00:42:40
viewers and listeners, if you haven't listened to uh this episode of 48 Hours, you can find it in your podcast feed,
00:42:47
the full audio version of it. So, go take a listen, then come on back for this conversation cuz we got questions.
00:42:55
Um and Peter has the answers. So, Peter, Michaela, and Frank Buyers, they're living in a small rural town of Mcome,
00:43:04
Oklahoma. Uh, Lieutenant Dakota Black described the area as beautiful and serene, and it certainly looks that way,
00:43:11
but also said there are a lot of dark secrets that live there, too. What did she mean by that?
00:43:17
>> Well, it's hard to believe, but Oklahoma has the highest rate of domestic violence of any state in the country.
00:43:24
And Dakota Black told us she in her own life has experienced violence in a relationship. And while Mcome only has a
00:43:32
population of less than 30 and keep in mind Michaela Frank and the girls they make up 20% of the population of Mcome
00:43:39
uh it's near an intersection of multiple interstate highways and Dakota Black said criminals moving through the area
00:43:47
are known to dump victims bodies there and there are people living in Pawatami County in poverty there some are off the
00:43:56
grid with no electricity or or running water toilets or even a roof over their head. There are some drug problems and
00:44:04
uh it's an open carry state. A lot of people have firearms and Lieutenant Black said they have missing people that
00:44:11
are never found, homicides that are never solved. And I do want to say that while the sheriff's office there is
00:44:18
small, they serve this large rural county with distinction and professionalism, and they were
00:44:25
outstanding in their efforts to find Michaela. That's the impression that I got just from watching the hour. Like
00:44:30
they just seem so on point and so um unbiased and completely focused on like where the evidence is driving them.
00:44:39
>> That's right. >> So let's talk a little bit about Michaela and Frank's relationship. Um
00:44:44
they were old high school classmates. They did not date in high school, but then many years later out of the blue,
00:44:52
Frank contacts her on Facebook and they start a relationship. Um they are married in 2022 and it's a large blended
00:45:00
family because Michaela, she already has two kids. Frank has four of his own daughters. But was Michaela's family
00:45:09
worried about the relationship that she had with Frank because there must have been red flags.
00:45:16
>> Yeah. Her sister Andrea said that at the beginning of this relationship, Frank
00:45:20
was a romantic person. One time he left rose petals in the bathtub, but that didn't last long. According to the
00:45:27
family, Michaela couldn't have kids of her own, but she had such a maternal gene and her family believes that these
00:45:33
four kids that Frank had were a really draw for her more than Frank himself. Um, detectives believe that Frank used
00:45:41
those young girls, his four daughters, to lure Michaela in. He told her that they had been abused by his then
00:45:48
girlfriend. And investigators would later determine that that was all a lie and a tactic he used to convince other
00:45:55
women to be with him as well. You might say it was Frank's business model and it
00:46:00
worked. >> What a way to describe it. >> And um her mother Barbara and her sister
00:46:06
Andrea say that they saw bruises on Michaela, but Michaela said they were just from roughousing with the kids and
00:46:13
the family believed her at the time. And looking back now, the family wish they had questioned her more about those
00:46:19
bruises. According to Barbara and Andrea, he was also a compulsive liar. And Frank had this pattern of cheating,
00:46:28
lying, and Michaela had left at least once. Let him know that's it. I'm not going to deal with this anymore. But she
00:46:35
came back. She always felt because of this devotion she had to those four children that she couldn't leave them
00:46:42
just in Frank's hands. Michaela's sister, Andrea, said that they were headed for divorce and Michaela had
00:46:49
temporarily moved to another structure on the property. But then on September 15th, 2023, Michaela returns home from
00:46:56
work, intending to pick her things up and leave for good, but she was never seen alive again. Frank then reports
00:47:06
Michaela missing in the afternoon of September 16th and the responding officer, Deputy Dustin Richardson, went
00:47:13
to the buyer's property to check it out. Typically, police will wait longer than
00:47:18
just a few hours for a missing person's report. But why did Richardson decide to
00:47:24
investigate this one, you know, relatively quickly? >> Yeah, investigator Richardson, his
00:47:29
instincts right away told him this just isn't adding up. He listened to Frank on
00:47:34
the 911 call and also spoke to Frank on the phone. And he just had a hunch that something seemed off. And when he got
00:47:42
there, Frank launched into his explanation as if he had a story planned out in in Richardson's mind that the
00:47:49
last time he saw Michaela, she was leaving to go on a date with a bold man and a white truck. And Frank also
00:47:55
claimed that they had an open marriage. And he said that they agreed to this arrangement to try to fix their
00:48:01
marriage. And we hear on Deputy Richardson's uh body camera footage that he thought Frank Buyers was squirly. You
00:48:09
know, as a audience member, I kind of went through like what does that word mean to me when I hear somebody squirly.
00:48:15
I think of them as kind of like a fast talker. Someone's got an answer to everything, but nothing's adding up.
00:48:21
>> Squirly is a great word. Uh and it just means you can't trust him. There's something about him that's just not
00:48:26
right. >> And uh and that's what what he picked up on right away. Right. So, he goes to the
00:48:32
school where she works, where Michaela works as um a teacher's aid, and then he goes back to the buyer's property, and
00:48:39
Frank at this point has smashed open the lock to the structure where Michaela was
00:48:44
living temporarily when she sort of like moved out of the first structure cuz she
00:48:48
doesn't want to be with him. Um, this is all starting to look kind of more and more suspicious to Richardson.
00:48:57
What is it that is bothering him? Well, Richardson asked Frank if he had a gun because they had discovered some
00:49:04
shell casings inside Michaela's shed where she lived. And Frank said yes. And he shows the gun to Richardson. Well,
00:49:11
Richardson noticed he was able through his training to tell that the gun had been recently fired. And Frank told him
00:49:18
that, well, these shell casings on the floor of Michaela's shed were from Michaela, get this, shooting at coyotes
00:49:25
on the property. He claimed she would sit inside her shed with the door open and and and fire at coyotes, which was
00:49:32
ridiculous to her family because she hated guns. >> And uh the shell casings were found that
00:49:39
they were going in a direction that showed that the shooter was not firing outside of her shed, but rather into the
00:49:47
shed, which told Richardson, "We may have a homicide scene here." >> Right. this guy's something's off about
00:49:53
what he's telling police. So, this missing person's investigation pretty quickly turns into a criminal
00:50:00
investigation. There's a massive search that's launched. And we are introduced to Lieutenant Dakota Black. She is
00:50:08
leading the charge. She is a detective, but she's also a tracker. What exactly is a tracker? Well, Dakota Black told us
00:50:16
that she is trained to look for signs that a normal detective might not see. Uh, she found people in all kinds of
00:50:24
places like trees and houses that didn't belong to them. And she's trained to use
00:50:29
her power of observation to look for the little clues, like evidence that someone
00:50:34
had once been through an area, details that others might miss, helping to locate missing people, fugitives, or
00:50:41
suspects. People always think of a tracker too from the old cowboy movies and saying, "Yes, someone was just here
00:50:47
45 minutes ago." True. She's not that precise, but she's close and she has a way about her that she notices things
00:50:54
that others don't. >> Well, listeners may also associate the term with a CBS show that we have called
00:51:00
Tracker, starring uh Justin Hartley. He's a sort of a bit of a lone wolf, this character. Lone wolf, wolf for
00:51:06
hire. Um but Lieutenant Dakota Black is not. She's an essential part of a team at the county sheriff's office, right,
00:51:14
Peter? >> Absolutely. Cops have always told me, you know, that they stay emotionally
00:51:18
detached, sort of like a doctor treating a patient, but Dakota Black keeps her heart right on her sleeve, and that
00:51:25
extra caring, that devotion really works for her. And during one interview with producer Liza Finley, Dakota Black
00:51:32
teared up. She cried as she thought about the horrors that Michaela went through and how in her own life she had
00:51:40
been threatened. I had never seen this level of emotion from a law enforcement detective ever in my career. And that
00:51:48
passion pushed and pushed her to get this case solved. >> And as I understand it, Dakota's whole
00:51:55
team was kind of singing her praises. >> Absolutely. Her colleagues, they have so
00:51:59
much respect for her. Dakota Black is a woman in her early 30s and she's working
00:52:05
with a lot of male colleagues. Um, some of whom uh she's in charge of and she said, "You can ask all the guys. They
00:52:12
call me a cool dude with long hair because I'm meaner than any of them and they know to listen to me." And Dakota
00:52:20
Black brings her own dog, Haven, to serve as a comfort dog to victims and for herself. if they ever make a TV show
00:52:28
about her. Here's a detective with a comfort animal in her office. And we have Dakota Black talking about her dog,
00:52:35
Haven. >> Um, she works with victims of um, homicides. She also works with victims
00:52:40
of domestic violence and sexual assault and then as well as with children. And she works with a lot of victims every
00:52:46
year. Her first year we had her, she worked with over 300 victims. They can cry on her, they can love on her, they
00:52:53
can hug her. Um sometimes she will lick them, you know. Um but she just provides
00:52:59
comfort for them and that's what her name represents which is a safe place. So that's what she does for our victims
00:53:05
and she does a good job. >> I was really struck by the professionalism and the humanity of this
00:53:12
whole team in Podawatami County. Dustin Richardson had been working at the sheriff's office for only four years at
00:53:18
the time of Michaela's case. And because of his great work, he was recently promoted to detective. And the under
00:53:25
sheriff is Marcus May. He's a terrific guy. And then the sheriff, Freeland Wood, who runs all of this, introduced
00:53:31
himself at the shoot and said he was so happy that 48 was covering this story. I'm telling you, the Podawatami County
00:53:38
Sheriff's Office has a peer support group to help police, first responders deal with the trauma that they
00:53:45
experience on the job, and they told us, "We see things that no one should have to see." And that weighs very heavy on
00:53:52
them. [music] So, it's a tiny sheriff's department with a big heart and a lot of
00:53:58
very professional, seasoned [music] investigators because they've got a lot on their hands in this rural county.
00:54:06
Welcome back. As search efforts were underway with dozens of people turning out to try to find Michaela, there's one
00:54:15
person who's absent. It's her husband, Frank Buyers. After Michaela had been missing for 5 days, she was found in a
00:54:24
large drainage pipe under a road and she is wrapped in a carpet. Investigators quickly zero in on Frank Buyers as the
00:54:34
primary suspect. Meanwhile, Frank continues to spin his narrative of being the grieving husband and he actually
00:54:42
goes on TV. So, I want to play a clip from a TV interview that he did with a local uh Fox affiliate, Fox 25. Just
00:54:49
take a listen to this. >> Even today, I called her. I mean, I know she's not here, but
00:55:00
It's just a fact that I have her number still and her phone still on somewhere and uh it just it would have been nice
00:55:10
just to hear your voice. >> You know, Peter, I was looking to see if I was seeing any real tears coming out
00:55:16
of those eyeballs of his because often, you know, often sometimes people make crying noises but they're not actually
00:55:22
crying, >> right? Yeah. This is one heartless, uncaring phony. uh this uh emotion that he had
00:55:29
there was all fake. He had crocodile tears that didn't really flow. Um Frank was so comfortable lying on TV. He says
00:55:38
her phone still on somewhere, but in reality he had her phone the whole time before investigators took devices into
00:55:47
evidence. So he knew exactly where it was. >> So you know days turn into weeks. There's no arrest. Michaela's family.
00:55:57
They are livid. Frank is still walking around. So, I'm really curious, what sort of evidence were investigators
00:56:05
looking for before they felt comfortable making an arrest? >> They wanted a piece of forensic evidence
00:56:10
that would leave no doubt that Frank was the killer. And Lieutenant Dakota Black
00:56:15
told us towns people knew it was Frank, but investigators needed to find that beyond a reasonable doubt kind of
00:56:22
evidence. So, they started digging into Frank's social media and there was a treasure trove of information there. He
00:56:28
had multiple dating profiles and multiple Facebook accounts. They found comments from from women with
00:56:36
screenshots on text messages with Frank. And one disturbing find, Frank was actually texting other women on the day
00:56:44
of Michaela's murder. Even on the day of her funeral, Frank sent a photo of himself to multiple women asking
00:56:53
something along the lines of, "How do I look in my tuxedo?" They also tracked down another girlfriend he had
00:57:00
assaulted, and she said he used the same tactic on her with the story of Frank's
00:57:06
four daughters being abused. So, they found lots of stuff that really told them about how this man operates,
00:57:13
>> right? And we see in the hour something else that they found. Um they recovered
00:57:20
footage from a home security camera. And really, I mean, detectives believe that
00:57:25
this is sort of the last that anyone would have seen of Michaela. >> Yeah. I'm telling you, technology now is
00:57:34
solving so many of these cases. Um, investigators were never able to find the actual physical security camera that
00:57:41
recorded these images, but Frank used an app on his phone to view the images, and
00:57:46
he thought, according to investigators, that he had deleted them. But when investigators did the forensic
00:57:52
extraction on Frank's phone, they were able to find these images. The first image you see is Michaela coming into
00:58:00
his home, and she's there for about 14 minutes. The next image we see her leaving the home. The last image is
00:58:09
Frank standing at his door looking out like he was about to follow Michaela back to the shed where she was living
00:58:17
where investigators believe he confronted her and shot her. >> Investigators also used a Walmart
00:58:26
receipt to track down security camera photos. Frank Buyers is seen buying bleach, ammonia, a mop, and according to
00:58:37
Dakota Black, all of this looks like a possible, you know, toolkit to clean up a crime scene.
00:58:43
>> I mean, go to Walmart and buy all those things. Frank even called the police while he was at that Walmart buying
00:58:50
those cleaning supplies. >> And then there's also the carpet, right? And what um investigators find out is
00:58:57
that the carpet that Michaela was wrapped up in, that was a carpet that a neighbor had given to the couple for
00:59:04
their dogs. Um so the evidence is adding up here, but they had hopes that a specific bullet that was found embedded
00:59:13
in Michaela's wall would also test positive for her DNA. >> That's right. And they weren't able to
00:59:19
get a a genetic confirmation on hair that was stuck to that bullet, but a dark substance that was found on Frank's
00:59:28
boots was Michaela's blood. That's when they went in for the arrest. >> 38 days after Michaela was reported
00:59:37
missing, Frank Buyers is arrested and he's charged with firstdegree murder. His defense, though, negotiates a deal
00:59:44
to take the death penalty off the table. Then 15 months later, he agreed to plead
00:59:51
guilty and serve life without parole. Michaela's mother really feels like this is a copout because he chose to take
00:59:59
Michaela's life and then he gets to choose his own punishment. >> And I understand Barbara's frustration
01:00:07
with the death penalty being taken off the table. Moving forward, they have now turned their grief, the family, into a
01:00:15
charity. They have started Michaela's Purple Butterfly nonprofit to fight against domestic violence. And they
01:00:22
raised money by selling handmade crafts made by women affected by domestic violence to build transition housing for
01:00:29
victims. And once 48 hours learned of Michaela's case, we really wanted to honor her by telling this story.
01:00:37
>> Uh, well, you absolutely did. Um, what I kept on thinking over and over again was
01:00:42
just how remarkable she was in her daytoday life. She was transforming the lives of his daughters, her own
01:00:51
children, the children at school. And I think about all that was lost, the future impact that she would have had
01:01:00
because of one selfish person's actions, >> right? She was a guardian angel to those
01:01:05
four kids. And when Frank took her life, he really impacted theirs so profoundly.
01:01:11
And we wish the best for those children. >> Yeah. And you know, once again, just
01:01:15
spotlight on domestic violence. Those red flags, that gut feeling, listen to them. It may end up saving, you know,
01:01:23
your life or the life of somebody that you love. Um, Peter Vansen, always lovely having you here. Thank you so
01:01:29
much. >> Thank you, Emry. And to our listeners, if you like this episode, please rate and review on Apple
01:01:37
Podcast or Spotify. [music]