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[music] [music] [music] It's hard. It's hard to research some of these cases, Captain, because what
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happens to me, and I know it happens to you, so don't pretend like it doesn't. I
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will be like hunting down information on a case and I stumble across something else, like I read something along the
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way, and I'm like, "Oh, that sounds interesting." Or that that tugged at the old heartstrings, and then I start
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reading and investigating that. And then I have to remind myself, no, I need to get next week's case done.
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>> Yeah. Well, and the other thing, too, is when you're trying to give out information and it's not just
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opinion-based and you have a limited time to do it because some of this stuff you can you
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could dive into like some of the hearsay stuff you could dive into for hours. >> Yeah. but it's not really responsible to
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sit there and talk about, you know, something that might not be true, might not have anything to do with the case.
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So, yeah, it's it's sometimes hard to keep on track. So, we did a California case recently and I came across this
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when I was digging for information and this was from a um an article. Well, what brought this
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story to my attention was a news article from the Fresno B, an article from 2017.
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>> Uhhuh. >> And I'm not going to go through that article. It's it's a good one. I
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recommend it if you if you can find it online, but it's about a missing person's case. And the individual that's
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missing is Michael Darnell Bell, >> right? Uh, he has been missing since September 17th, 2011.
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I'm sure if you look up his name, Michael Darnell Bell with Fresno B, you'll be able to find this this article
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here. But the thing that got me here, one, this is a young man. And two, his mother does an interview for this
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article. Her name is Deanna Mcnite Bell. And you can you I read her words and I can hear I can feel her heart is broken.
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And I thought, you know, we uh this is one I at least want to throw his name out there and give a description of him.
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Uh looking into this case, it didn't really it didn't fit our format of of long form format. Uh there's there's
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little that I know about this case and I I'll look into it a little more. Maybe there is more out there, but
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uh this individual went missing as said September 17th, 2011. Now, there is a page for him on the
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Charlie Project. >> Yeah. >> And I do want to point out to everybody, I don't have I brought this up before.
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The Charlie Project >> I don't know. >> We don't know what I'm about to say. >> Uh well, hear me now and uh get back to
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me later. Um, the Charlie Project >> is when you go on there, >> they are now asking for donations. And
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this can even be like a small donation. Uh, I think they're asking for $3. The Charlie Project, I want to give them
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some kudos and I'm hoping people hearing this might be inspired to donate $3 to them to keep the Charlie Project around.
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My understanding is the Charlie Project is run it's operated uh it's a a it's a woman that that runs it. It's a very
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small operation. >> Yeah. >> Very small operation and they do not have advertising on their site. They do
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not sell advertising space on the Charlie Project site. The thing that I love about their
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website is I find that they are more accurate and more upto-date than some of the other bigger run sites that are that
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are similar, you know, that are devoted to missing individuals or to these cold cases.
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>> Yeah. >> Where you'll go on some of them and a person has been found and they just
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didn't update it. And that's not the situation with the Charlie Project website. So, I donated a little bit of
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money. The garage donated a little bit of money. I'm hoping that some people out there cuz there's a lot of people
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especially in the true crime community that access these sites probably rather frequently
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and if you want them to stay around at some point we got to help the people that are running these sites. So the
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Charlie page for Michael Darnell Bell Jr. is what he's listed on here. Uh missing from Mandota, California. His
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classification is endangered missing. He is an African-American male. He was born
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January 26th, 1986. [snorts] So, he'd be 33 years old. Don't check the math on that. Um, missing, he
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would have been about 25 when he went missing. He's 6' tall, 190 lb. He was last wearing a white shirt, black pants,
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white sneakers, and a dark colored backpack. He has some very distinctive tattoos
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on his person. So, he's one of these people that that should be easy to identify.
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Um, it's he [snorts] went missing under suspicious circumstances. His t his tattoos are as follows. He has his
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nickname, which is Mike, on one arm, his last name, Belle, on the other arm, along with a list of his father's
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accomplishments. It doesn't state what the what that would be. And then on then he also has the names Ashant Ashante I'm
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guessing and Shikina on tops on the tops of his wrist. >> Is that daughter's names or
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>> um I I do not know. His ears are pierced as well. So, he was last seen in Menota,
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California on the 17th of September in 2011 at approximately 3:15 a.m. The car he was driving, this was his his
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mother's vehicle was, it's a blue 2002 Toyota Camry, it ran out of gas on the interstate on Interstate 5
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>> near Russell Avenue about 4 hours north of Los Angeles, California. A highway
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patrol officer dropped him off at the Chevron gas station. Uh, this is west of Pino Road. I'm going
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to spell that just cuz I don't think I'm saying that right. P A N O C H E Road near Modota. And he was never heard from
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again. This is after getting a ride, a helping ride from a highway patrol officer.
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>> Yeah. Apparently, he was supposed to his hometown. >> Hold on. Because because of the
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circumstances, you're going to >> immediately you start going, "Wait, wait. Law enforcement is involved. Law
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enforcement is the last people, possibly the last person to see them." And then you get conspiracy theorists popping
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their heads up like crazy right now. Not saying it's warranted. I'm just saying,
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>> right? I don't think that's the situation here. Um, I think if that was the situation, we
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have a family that's active and being active in the public looking for, >> right,
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>> uh, their family member. I think they would be calling out >> law enforcement, which they're not.
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>> Yeah. State Patrol and that doesn't seem to be the situation we and and >> but look, if you do something if you do
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something to somebody and they are no longer around, you usually don't offer up information that you were the last
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one to be, >> right? But that's that's why I wanted to be clear about it is that the family is
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not saying anything. So just his last scene with him, you know. >> Yeah. As far as we know, like I said,
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this is just one of those things you you come across this article, your heart breaks for his mother.
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>> Yeah. >> Uh you see him and you think of yourself when you're 25 and you just you want to do something
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about it. Um we don't know a lot of the details here. Uh but I I'll go through a
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few of the details that we do know. Apparently, he was Michael Bell was supposed to take a trip to his hometown.
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I guess he's from Cleveland, Ohio, but he never arrived and didn't answer his family's repeated calls to his cellular
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phone. >> His loved ones checked his apartment in Los Angeles, and found his phone and
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personal belongings there and food in the microwave. This is what's weird about this story. So his the vehicle
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he's driving runs out of gas. State patrol officer drops him off at a gas station. That's the last report we have
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of him being seen or heard from, but we have a situation where from this description he there's a chance he made
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it back to his apartment at some point. >> Yeah. >> Uh Belle and his mother's car were
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missing. His relatives reported him missing on September 22nd. The police found and located his car located the
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car abandoned where he left it when it ran out of gas. So if he did go back to his apartment, he went there instead of
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returning to the vehicle with gas. So investigators aren't sure where Bell was going when he ran out of gas on the
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interstate, but he told this is where conspiracy theory is going to go again. Uh
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>> yeah, but this some warrant warrant here. Go ahead. He told the officer he left a religious service that he didn't
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like. He had gotten interested in the Church of Scientology and was studying it and reading about it, but as far as
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his family knows, he wasn't attending any church regularly. They say his loved ones stated it was uncharacteristic of
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him to leave without warning. And they describe him as good-hearted, giving, and outgoing. He was starting a
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nonprofit organization to establish group homes for homeless children and planned to meet with others on the board
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of the organization during his upcoming visit to Cleveland. Bel attended Michigan State University where he
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played football. He left behind a young son. Both Fresno County and Los Angeles police are investigating Bell's case. It
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remains unsolved. The circumstances of his disappearance are unclear. Uh let's see if we have a I know you want to
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weigh in here. >> Well, I just want to say that when you have a a church like the Church of
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Scientology, if you want to call it a church, um that's what the government recognizes them as, but when you have
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the leader of that church where there is no sign, there's no evidence that his wife is still alive.
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I mean, it's the one of the biggest So, if you just look it up about about five minutes in, you're
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going to get pissed off. And anytime that somebody brings up the Church of Scientology, that's all you're going to
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think about. Said there's a missing person, that their family has reached out to law enforcement to say, "We're
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worried about this person. There's no evidence that she's even alive anymore." and they basically have done nothing to
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try to find this individual because it's the head of church's Scientology and it's almost like they don't want to get
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involved and it's pathetic. And so then when you see this situation, this guy leaves a meeting and then goes missing
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and then maybe it has nothing to do with him going missing but >> but but according to the officer, it
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sounds like he came from some kind of service that he didn't like is what the officer is saying,
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>> right? And and and look to when I first heard that the head of the Church of Scientology's wife has been
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missing for like 5 years and that nobody's seen her, I thought this has to be the biggest story I've ever
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heard in my life. and go over to Google and there's like 60inute episodes on this and there's all these
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news reports about this and it's almost like law enforcement hasn't done anything like they don't want to get
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involved and so it's like >> are they are they being shut out though? >> Well, part partly they're probably being
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shut out. So they're probably they probably know that it's a losing battle anyways. But it's like this person could
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be dead. She could have been murdered and you are doing nothing about it because it's a church made up by a guy
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that wrote science fiction. M, you know, it's it's it's baffles my brain that we're even going to consider
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that a church and give them um, you know, the special uh, privileges that churches have. And then you're not going
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to investigate this poor woman that's been missing for so long and nobody knows where she's at, if she's even
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alive. Maybe she's being tortured. And we have all these other reports of people that had to escape from these
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compounds of the Church of Scientology. Now you got this I mean this is a good-looking guy, you know, smart guy,
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guy trying to do stuff good in his community and uh goes to a meeting, sees something
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he doesn't like, hears something he doesn't like. Well, what was that, you know, and now he's missing and and
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it it connects back to this so-called church. I mean, it's ridiculous. Sorry, that was my rant.
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>> No, you're all right. Um, yeah. So, if anybody has any information or thinks they've seen Michael or know
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anything about his disappearance, the investigating agencies, as we said, are the Los Angeles Police Department and
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the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. The LA Police Department, their number that you would call with info would be
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213-9961800 and Fresno County Sheriff's Office is 5594883111. So, in telling this story, we're hoping
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to keep his story alive, keep it uh going, passing from ear to ear, and maybe we can spread the word and get
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some information for his very this family's, you know, this is like eight years now that they're missing
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their their son, their brother, um you know, missing Michael. >> Yeah. And >> and they got no answers. They got they
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they got even I mean, they got nothing, right? That's that's the other heartbreaking part of this that that
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that breaks your heart even more is we got a little bit of a story, >> right, >> from state patrol.
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We go to his apartment and it all, you know, food in the microwave. >> Yeah. >> Um I'm forgetful, but I I don't usually
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forget food in the microwave. That almost seems like he's there and something happens or somebody approaches
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him, >> which Right. Right. Right. or he tries to return to the car and something
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happened on the way to the car. >> It's just weird, man, when >> Tyler Davis and some of these other
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individuals that we've talked about on our show before, it's like poof, vanish into thin air.
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>> Yeah. Almost like there's like this >> no no trail of breadcrumbs or nothing.
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>> Like this random portal that just opens up in the universe and they walk in and
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it swallows them up. But again, there's a a website that's dedicated to cases like this, the Charlie Project. It's
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charliepro.org. >> Yeah, >> you can donate. I just donated >> $100. >> God bless you.
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>> Um, but but I've been to the site multiple times and I've sent people to the site multiple times and if
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somebody's going to try to do good work and put out work and this is not for entertainment value. They're not doing
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the Charlie Project for some entertainment value. they're putting this out there to try to help these
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individuals and help these families. >> And even if they just help one family, which I'm sure they've helped many more,
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it's it's worth it. And and we're not sponsored by them or anything like that. It's just
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>> right. And and the lady that runs the Charlie Project, God bless her, she works very hard to keep all of these uh
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cases up to date, as we said. Oh, >> here's what I found. I'm sorry. I'm I'm trolling around online uh looking up
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stuff for this case. So, there are some other ways if you have information that you might feel more comfortable uh using
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these methods. You could do missing persons.online. So, I'm guessing you could submit a tip
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via email at missingpersonslapd.online. And tips can also be made anonymously. anonymously.
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I'm making up new words here. >> Uhhuh. My mama's >> Yeah, don't look that one up because
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I've I've not typed in the definition yet. Uh, you can make tips. And this is 1877-5273247.
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So, you wouldn't even have to give your name there. Just give the information and help out.
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>> Yeah. Anything you can do. Fight the good fight. [music] >> [music]