Board re-establishes reward in Mitrice Richardson death

The Board of Supervisors has voted to re-establish a $20,000 reward offer for information leading to a conviction in the death of Mitrice Richardson, a woman who went missing after being released from the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in 2009.
The 24-year-old Cal State Fullerton graduate had been arrested Sept. 16, 2009 when she was unable to pay her $89 bill at Geoffrey’s, a Malibu restaurant. Deputies also found some marijuana in her car and impounded it.
Richardson was released from the station in Calabasas a little after midnight the following morning without transportation, a cell phone or her purse.
She disappeared soon after her release. Neighbors reported seeing a woman who may have been Richardson sleeping on a porch later that morning, but she was gone by the time deputies arrived. Sheriff’s deputies and volunteers mounted extensive air and ground searches, fruitlessly.
She remained missing until August 2010, when skeletal remains were found by state rangers searching an abandoned marijuana farm in the unincorporated Monte Nido area, about 30 miles from the sheriff’s station. Using dental records, the remains were identified as Richardson.
The Board of Supervisors initially offered a $10,000 reward for information into Richardson’s disappearance in 2009, before her remains were found. It was re-established in 2010 and again in 2021.
The board extended the reward again in 2022 and increased it to $20,000 for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible for her disappearance and death, but that reward offer expired in May this year.
Malibu and Calabasas still have active reward offers totaling $20,000 in the case. The exact cause of Richardson’s death was never determined, but authorities at the time insisted there was no sign of foul play — a contention challenged by her family.
Richardson’s disappearance led to an outcry by her relatives and others about the actions of sheriff’s deputies in their handling of her arrest and release.
Her mother, Latice Sutton, contended that authorities should have recognized her daughter’s erratic behavior as abnormal and given her a mental health evaluation. Her father said she should have been placed on a 72-hour psychiatric hold, rather than being released.