The LA County Board of Supervisors re-established a $20,000 reward Monday for information in the mysterious disappearance and death of Mitrice Richardson.
Richardson went missing nearly 15 years ago in Sept. 2009, after she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in Agoura. At 24, she had recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton.
The cause of her death was never determined.
Richardson’s remains were found about a year after her disappearance in Dark Canyon in the Malibu area, when officials were searching through an abandoned illegal marijuana farm.
Richardson was initially arrested after failing to pay her $89 bill at Geoffrey’s, a restaurant off the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.
Originally from West Covina in the San Gabriel Valley, she was unfamiliar with this area of LA. Investigators who went through her diary and text messages said that they found evidence that Richardson had been suffering from a sleepless bipolar episode when she was arrested.
Neighbors reported seeing a woman who could have been Richardson sleeping on a porch later that morning after her release, but by the time deputies arrived at the scene, she was gone.
The Board of Supervisors initially offered a $10,000 reward for information about Mitrice’s disappearance before her remains were found. They re-established the reward in 2010 and again in 2022.
Richardson’s family has always suspected foul play in the handling of her arrest and release, arguing that officers should have been more responsive towards her mental state.
The family sued the county, reaching a settlement of about $900,000 in 2011.
