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there's no way two friends just go missing within a month of each other somehow someway I know they're connected
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it's a haunting mystery one that seems to grow more complex than dark The Disappearance of Micah holsen bake and
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Bailey despot and in between those two disappearances a murder in a Bakersfield neighborhood where crime is rather rare
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is it three mysteries or one these three people knew each other and they're all either at this point dead or missing
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there's something big about about what's going on there's something something crazy about this case I got to find her
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to hold her one last time even if it is just her bones we're just trying to find
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out where they are just somebody tell me where they are and we will go get them I
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I will go dig I will go dig and I will find [Music] [Applause] them working in Bakersfield as a local
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news reporter was a unique time in my life I had a hunger and drive I don't think could ever be replicated I was a
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20-some making no money working often obscenely long hours completely by choice eating almost strictly microwave
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meals and fast food and spending way too much time making sure my fake eyelashes
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and hair were just right I look back on the days where I'd wear heels in a dress
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while knocking on doors in a rough neighborhood in over 100° heat desperate to find someone who'd give me a sound
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bite describing hearing gunshots which by the way is almost always the same I thought it was fireworks at first and
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every time I'd get the sound bite it was an accomplishment for maybe all of 5 minutes until the next breaking news
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event happened and I loved every second of it I lived and breathed it and felt a
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sometimes maddening need to be first which is kind of the name of the game in local news trying to break the big story
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meaning you're the first reporter to uncover the information when I first started I envisioned myself going to a
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local bar after work where there'd be a group of deputies having beers they'd welcome me to join them and I'd end up
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leaving every night with a big scoop but that never happened not even close I quickly learned that usually if
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there's a significant event like a homicide or armed robbery all of us reporters hear about it at the
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same time through the police scanners we have blaring in the newsrooms 24/7 we then all race out to the scene
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elbowing each other trying to get as close to the Yellow Tape as possible my old news director Mike trye
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used to say you make your own luck so we'd persist with a ritual of digging coming up empty and trying again another
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day a built-in part of that routine for me at 17 News was to go to the courthouse once a week and look through
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search warrants doing this probably hundreds of times I can only think of a few instances when I found a search
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warrant that was to put it simply anything good anything we'd put on the news 99% of the time any search warrants
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pertaining to a case the media would report on are sealed by law enforcement it's rare that one slips through the
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cracks and you're lucky enough to find it despite all this something kept bringing
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me back to court to look through them still having that glimmer of hope that one day I would find something
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big that day came an early summer of 2018 though just how big no one could have known
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[Music] then I'm Olivia Lavo and this is the Bakersfield 3 [Music] going through my stack that day I
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started thumbing through a warrant that was for a crime that on the surface seemed pretty dull an investigation into
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a felon being in possession of a firearm there's nothing newsworthy about a felon
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having a gun when they're not supposed to it happens all the time it's illegal yes but not significant enough to report
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on this warrant though was different because of one little sentence that mentioned a missing woman who I'd later
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Learned was named Bailey despot it then went on to describe a man named Arturo coming home while his wife was out of
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town and finding something odd here's Arturo to explain I see bags in my front door and I was like wow is my wife home
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supposed to be home like the next day and I said well maybe she's surprising me that's what I thought but the closer
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I got to the door I noticed that that was not her luggage and I was like okay that's weird
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and I I looked down and there was a note and it said um tell Bailey that I love her but I cannot be with her our
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knew Bailey as a friend of his sons from high school he recalled his son recently
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telling him that no one had heard from Bailey for several months it kind of stung me a little bit I was like well
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she's missing why has her back's here so I called him and I go son I go is Bailey
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here and he was like what and he goes no she's not here I go son her bags are right in the front he
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goes what are her bags doing I say I do not know he goes well let me call her mom and find out soon after Bailey's
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mother Jane showed up and I I had never met her and uh we're talking she goes yeah this is her stuff so she started
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going through her bags and and poor lady she was so emotional like this is what I
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gave her for her birthday this is what I gave her last year and I mean she was just crying I was just like overwhelmed
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and she's like well who dropped them off and I said I don't know so we went through my cameras and finally I found
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the footage of who dropped them off I'm like oh my God that's Matt Queen and he's got a gun Bailey's mother Jane
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recognized the man Matt queen as the guy she refuses to call her daughter's boyfriend but it seems for all intents
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and purposes he was and here he was about a month after Bailey vanished dropping off her things at a friend's
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home that really seemed like a random choice and when he dropped her belongings off as shown in the
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surveillance video he was armed the gentleman he pulled up to the door and of course nobody was here we're all
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at work so he pushed the bags down then he goes back to the Suburban and then he
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comes back he gets the ladder and he sits it on the back but when he bends over to set the letter
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down his sweater picks up and he had a gun on his back and me and Jee was like wow like we're just stung like how about
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one of us was to be home like like what would the outcome would have been I don't
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know Jane called the police immediately after seeing the video for themselves investigators went to Matt Queen's house
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to speak with him where they found a loaded gun which legally as a felon he can't have Queen wasn't in jail for long
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just a few days before he made bail but this warrant described how after his arrest he called his wife from jail yes
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as I'd later find out Queen had his wife and Bailey living with him under the same roof we'll get more into that
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later when Queen called his wife after his arrest that day he told her to come get some things from his car before the
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cops could behind the driver's seat there's a backpack gray and black is it there yeah okay take that in
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the house in that backpack is all the letters and everything all the evidence that [ __ ] she left you mean that
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James and lion [ __ ] it's all it's all stuff that she wrote about her mom that's why I left you the phone too the
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Snapchat is still on that phone you don't have to access it you open it in in that Snapchat it is all kinds of like
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evidence to show that Jan is a [ __ ] Vol and N this crazy person it appeared Queen was telling his
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wife in the backpack there was evidence that quote she left she being Bailey he referenced letters and a phone with a
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Snapchat account that would show Bailey's Mom Jane acting crazy it seems at that point Queen sense detectives
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were looking at him for Bailey's disappearance and he blamed Jane for that in addition to the letters and
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phone Queen also asks his wife to see if his tools are there go to are still here okay have to
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take those get the job right away all right I got to go get him he's yeah go get him right now because you
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know they listen to everything I say right now careful I love you all right bye Queen told his wife to go get his
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brother and have him take the quote Tools in his car to the dump right away it sounded suspicious of course so
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according to the search warrant I'd found detectives wanted to search Queen's home vehicles and phone for
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evidence that he could be involved in the manufacturing of illegal Firearms seemed pretty obvious to me that sure
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maybe if police discovered evidence of that it'd be a bonus but what they were really after was evidence pertaining to
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the missing woman he'd been living with Bailey I thought looking at him for illegal guns was just their way in and
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having this warrant was my way into the story I remember when I first saw Bailey's photo she's striking tall
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slender with long dark hair and big green eyes there was something classic and effortless about her beauty she
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stood out but as I looked at photos of her on Matt Queen's Facebook page what stood out even more was Queen's
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extensive bizarre and somewhat fascinating social media presence he had numerous posts about looking for Bailey
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that included missing Flyers he'd made himself that said he last saw her getting into a black SUV with a heavy
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set man but what really caught my eye were screenshot text messages he posted but between himself and Bailey's mother
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Jane one screenshot showed Queen sent this text to Jane at first I thought you were simply an overprotective mother and
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I respected that but it is now clear that biley was right all along you have a mental disorder yes Jane I'm twice her
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age get over it find something else wrong with me you're obsessed with biley and it's not healthy I'm in love with
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her and if I'm not mistaken she's in love with me keep trying to drive a wedge between us it's only weakening the
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strength in yours naturally I had to hear what Jane had to say about all this you wanted to
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interview me and I was very hesitant I remember and you're like well I think the best thing is to get it out there
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and I'm like yeah but they're telling me I can't do that it might scare off the bad people or
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something Jane was in a tough spot at this time a little over a month after her daughter's disappearance detec IV
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had told her to stay away from media which by the way almost never makes sense in missing person's cases how can
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someone be found if no one even knows they're missing being told to avoid the news but desperate to get the word out
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Jane had taken to Hanging literally thousands of Flyers around town that first phone call she was pretty
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disappointed to know that none of the Flyers had caught my attention apparently as I explained I hadn't heard
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of her daughter's case until finding the search warrant that day if you haven't heard of Bailey's case
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asked Jane have you heard of Micah holsen bake's case I told her I hadn't well he went
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missing a month before Bailey did and the two of them were friends Jane said now this sounded a bit more complex
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than I initially thought this case was going to be even more so when Jane explained how the connection between
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Micah and Bailey was made in the first place I found out that after Micah holsen bake
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went missing in late March Micah's brother immediately started his own investigation of sorts someone he spoke
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with said he should try to track down a couple of people who might have information including a young woman
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Bailey parent that's weird that doesn't sound like anybody we know that's Micah's mom Cheryl the name
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Bailey parent didn't mean anything to them then but a few weeks later Cheryl and her husband Lance were out in
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Bakerfield looking for Micah sometimes they would drive around aimlessly when they'd ran out of people
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to talk to that day Cheryl and Lance spotted a missing flyer for a young woman how horrible her family is going
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through what we're going through they thought then they noticed the name Bailey only the last name listed was
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different it was despot the Bailey they were told knew Micah was Bailey parent but something in Micah's dad
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call it fatherly instinct told him to do a little digging the Flyers had clearly
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been made by the missing woman's mother Jane but he looks her up on Facebook and
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he's like Jane's last name is parent that's Bailey parent oh my God and there it was the name
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Micah's brother had been given shortly after Micah went missing the initial disconnect was Bailey and Jane having
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different last names but there was no mistaking it this was the same Bailey she supposedly knew something is what we
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had been told you better talk to Bailey parent now knowing she too had gone missing Cheryl says Lance had a horribly
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Grim theory he said Mike is dead and she knew too much regardless of if the hunch was
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right they knew there was something going on here we had no proof of anything we just knew they were
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gone Cheryl and Lance hadn't been getting far with detectives and were determined to get answers themselves so
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they reached out to Bailey's Mom Jane I was very leery I didn't trust anybody I didn't know who to trust I didn't trust
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them in the beginning they probably didn't trust me but we had two things in common our kids knew each other and they
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were missing Jane met with Cheryl and her husband at a restaurant where over pie
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and iced tea that sat untouched they discussed the horrifying possibilities of what could have happened to their
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children they compared notes and commiserated over the difficulty of getting detectives to take them
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seriously after Jane told me all of this on that first phone call the questions were endless so I put together a short
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and simple story with the little I knew it focused primarily on Bailey being missing and mentioned the possibility of
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a connection between her and Micah's cases after it aage social media immediately lit up with theories the
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most popular being that Micah and Bailey were lovers that ran off to Mexico to be
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together among the comments I remember seeing one from Lance Micah's dad it said something along the lines of the
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connection between the two should definitely be investigated and referred to Micah and Bailey as
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acquaintances I noticed someone responded to that comment a girl named Sarah her response read I was a good
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friend of Bailey's and Micah was around a lot we knew him more than just as an acquaintance also I believed they are
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link LED as well I clicked on Sarah's profile she had a few posts about Bailey's disappearance one read you are
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a good friend Bailey I know you're just hiding out somewhere I bet you're a smart girl and I miss you and so does
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Queen I love you ba I couldn't tell you how or why her and Bailey started hanging out but they
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did that's Maddie one of Bailey's closest friends she says Sarah went to high school with them but Bailey and
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Sarah didn't connect until after graduation and they seem to get close very fast the wildness about them is very
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much the same and that is what drew them so close together Sarah and Bailey both
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loved to Thrill both acted like they didn't care much about what other people thought and I noticed they both looked
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very similar same body type same Fair complexion with the same long dark hair and green eyes I know that Sarah was
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dating a different guy named Matt and she's the one that introduced Bailey to Queen so that's how all that
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happened Sarah was dating a guy named Matt vantile who was good friends with Matt Queen so when Bailey coupled up
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with Matt Queen it seemed like that dream scenario friends dating another set of friends getting to double date
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and hang out all the time both Matts were much older than their girlfriends Matt vanic Castile was 10 years older
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than Sarah and Bailey and Matt Queen had lived twice the life they had with their
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20year age Gap Queen had a wife and family when Bailey and Sarah were in elementary school now the four of them
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were spending a lot of time together and apparently before he went missing Michael holsen bake was spending a lot
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of time with them too when I got in touch with Micah's mom Cheryl she told me after Micah went
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missing before she found out about Bailey and reached out to Jane something strange happened I get this phone call
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out of the blue the gist of her conversation was my son is James kl's dad James and Mah were
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friends and James was killed James colestad was murdered about 2 weeks after Micah went missing and
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about 2 weeks before Bailey's disappearance here's is Mom Diane or D as we all call
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her I'm reading on Facebook that Mike is missing and I knew from conversations that James and I had that he had been
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hanging out with Micah when D saw Micah was missing so close to her son's murder
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something didn't feel right just something in my gut so she contacted Cheryl who like d had been doing her own
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investigating Cheryl and I talked a lot we were talking every day at the phone we were starting to do our research you
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know names background checks on different people and just so many of the same names kept coming up it was around
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this time that Cheryl and her husband discovered Bailey was missing suddenly they found themselves looking at all
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three cases they were connected somehow we had gotten enough information that we
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we knew they had shared friends as it was relayed to me that Micah James and Bailey all knew each other and their
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mothers were trying to figure out if the three were connected I knew I had to get
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the three moms in a room together we agreed to all meet at dy's home James's mother Dy a medical billing specialist
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keeps her home and her appearance impeccable Cheryl Micah's mother a college Finance Professor dressed the
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part simple she let her hair start to Gray and wore no makeup Bailey's mother Jane a special education
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care specialist dresses casual but colorful think Jean overalls with a bright purple top and sunflower scarf
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tied in her hair as the three of them sat down at dy's dining room table with me I noticed how fragile they were
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trembling voices with what initially felt like a sense of apprehension but the more we all spoke I began to see a
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shift from anguish to a feeling of determination I didn't want to stop that day I think we talked for hours didn't
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we we talked a long time I I felt relief I felt like somebody's finally listening who wants to hear more
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than mik is missing they wanted to hear what we thought was going on yeah the backstory of why this happened to
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them and the notebook after notebook after notebook that we had filled with with information
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I think we needed someone to give us that confidence that we could take this on and I think you did give us that
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together the three of them were emboldened and quickly adopted the motto fight like a
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mother we we began leaning on each other early on cuz who else do you call yeah and it was nice not to be walking that
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walk alone we could call each other any time day or night each of them brought a
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different skill set to the table Jane Bailey's mom was the one hitting the streets well I was the flyer girl I'm
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like let me get out and do it cuz if I'm not out there searching or doing something I'm
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like it's my sanity keeper she hung up thousands of missing flyers for Bailey and missing flyers for Micah and
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eventually a poster for all three of the cases that read the Bakersfield 3 can you connect the dots for three friends
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when it comes to connecting the dots Cheryl Micah's mom was taking all the bits of information on the cases and all
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the people that Micah James and Bailey had in common and organizing it my career um was in research and data
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collection and so I knew how to take uh anecdotal evidence and I knew how to prioritize it and put it in a nice
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spreadsheet and make sure we passed it off to the right people and I knew how to look for information and James's mom
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die I'm the one that will make the calls and set up the appointments yes very much our schedule keeper they recognized
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immediately they were a powerful team if we were by ourselves you can't hold it together long enough to do it in this in
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our situations none of us could have held it together and done all of those yeah the detective work we did the
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Google everything and the calling and the looking people up and learned how to look and track people down and
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interviewing people till 2 in the morning on the phone taking notes with a crayon when you can't find a pen and
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convincing the local people to put us on their schedule and and meet with us and
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talk to us yeah I remember the first time they showed up to my news station with a
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binder of timelines and spreadsheets and even a color coordinated diagram of people who were in The Circle of Friends
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with Micah James and Bailey complete with the individual's fot photos I couldn't believe how much information
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they'd gathered themselves and how quickly they'd done it frankly it was almost a bit overwhelming as they mapped
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out a plethora of different crimes they believed this web of people might be involved in ranging from male theft to
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drug dealing to sex trafficking and it was all apparently happening in an area of town I didn't normally report on very
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nice schools nice neighborhoods well you know large home homes people they talk about oh well I live in this part of
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town so that kind of stuff doesn't happen here oh yes it does and may be two doors down you have no
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idea it was a lot to untangle the first most pressing issue was understanding the ties between Micah James and Bailey
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yes they knew each other and had many people in common but what was really going on with this group of people and
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were the cases really all connected it's one of the few times in my career where
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I've kind of almost been warned hey you don't want to dig too deep on this one that's next time on the Bakersfield 3
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[Music]