0:08

School of Humans.

0:13

On Sunday, October seventeenth,

0:15

twenty twenty one, a thirty nine

0:17

year old mother of one named Heidi Plank

0:20

was starting her day. Heidi was

0:22

leaving her rented townhouse on the west side

0:24

of Los Angeles near Culver City. She

0:27

was on her way to watch her eleven year old

0:29

son Bond play football. Heidi,

0:32

by the way, was a huge James Bond fan,

0:35

so that's how she chose her son's and

0:37

her dog's names based on the Double O seven

0:39

theme. So her son was Bond and her

0:41

labradoodle was seven like Double oh

0:43

seven. Surveillance camera

0:45

footage from outside Heidie's house showed

0:47

her walking out the door. She was dressed

0:50

in jeans and a white T shirt with a smiley

0:52

face on it. She had a sweater

0:54

tied around her waist and it was described

0:56

in the media as gray, but it was actually more

0:58

like a grayish color, kind of a gray beige.

1:02

Heidie was petite, she had long blonde

1:04

hair. She was he was five foot three and

1:06

was carrying a purse with her. She

1:08

was holding a cup of coffee in one

1:11

hand, and seven, her dog,

1:13

was on his leash walking behind her. She

1:16

put seven in the car and climbed behind

1:18

the wheel of the silver range Rover with a license

1:20

plate U eight four zero

1:23

XO, and drove away. Heidi

1:25

was divorced from Bond's father. Her ex husband,

1:28

a sixty three year old hairstylist named Jim

1:30

Wayne. Jim had a salon in

1:32

Beverly Hills. Jim and

1:35

Heidi were married in two thousand and eight, but

1:37

they divorced four years later, and

1:39

at the time Heidi went missing, they shared

1:41

custody of Bond. Jim told

1:44

police that the last time he saw Heidi

1:46

was when she showed up to her son's football game

1:48

that afternoon. The game, by the way,

1:51

was in Downy, which was around seventeen miles

1:53

from Heidie's home, so it would have taken

1:55

her around half an hour to get there from the townhouse.

1:58

Several witnesses saw Heidi at that game

2:01

and interacted with her. Jim

2:03

said that she seemed a little bit

2:05

on edge when she left the game at halftime,

2:07

which was around four thirty PM, but

2:10

there was nothing that seemed extremely out of the

2:12

ordinary until they were looking at these events

2:14

in hindsight. It was Jim's

2:17

weekend with Bond, so Jim

2:19

and Bond went home after the game. Heidi

2:21

and Jim got along well. Even

2:24

though there had been some rocky moments in their

2:26

divorce, they apparently had had

2:28

a good co parenting relationship for

2:30

several years. When Heidi

2:32

left the game, she told her son that she would

2:34

call him later, But even though Heidi

2:37

always talked to her son every single

2:39

day, she never called him.

2:41

In fact, Bond never talked to his mother

2:44

again because that day

2:47

Heidi Plank vanished, and

2:49

after she disappeared, it did not take

2:51

long for rumors to start flying about

2:54

her ex husband Jim, about her boss,

2:56

Jason Sugarman, about her boss's

2:58

links to big money and powerful people

3:00

in Los Angeles. In fact, to

3:02

me, when I first saw Heidi on the

3:04

news and I about this case, it

3:07

seemed like a real life version of

3:09

the movie Chinatown. It's

3:11

now been over two years since Heidi

3:13

plant disappeared. There's been no sign

3:16

of Heidi and no sign of her body.

3:18

All we have are some rumors about

3:21

an apartment building in downtown Los Angeles

3:24

and a devastated little boy without a

3:26

mother. I'm

3:29

Catherine Townsend. If you have a

3:31

case you'd like me and my team to look into, you

3:33

can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder

3:35

line at six seven eight seven four

3:37

four six one four five. That's

3:40

six seven eight seven four four six

3:43

one four five. This

3:45

is Helen Gone Murder Line.

4:19

Heidi Plank was originally from New York

4:21

State. She was born and raised in Buffalo.

4:23

In two thousand and one, she moved to California

4:26

and went to California State University. Before

4:29

we dive into Heidie's work life, I

4:31

want to follow the natural trajectory of the

4:33

police investigation and take a look

4:35

at her relationship with her ex husband, Jim,

4:38

because, as we all know, in

4:40

any investigation, and especially if

4:42

there is a contentious divorce, police

4:45

are always looking at x'es. I

4:48

actually did an episode of another podcast

4:51

called Blood Money, it's about white collar

4:53

criminals and con artists who kill about

4:56

this case back in twenty twenty two, so

4:58

I want to take a look at what has changed since

5:01

then. So of course

5:03

police want to know about Heidie's relationship

5:06

with her ex husband. Jim and

5:08

Heidi seem to have a friendly relationship,

5:11

but according to court records, they

5:13

had had some issues over the years. Court

5:16

filing show they had had a battle

5:18

for custody in the past, and at

5:20

one point Jim had full custody

5:22

of their son, and Jim had accused

5:25

Heidie of drug abuse. Jim

5:27

also made some comments to the media after

5:29

Heidi went missing about how they

5:31

had what he called different parenting

5:33

styles. He said something about how

5:36

Heidi was more permissive than he was, which

5:38

did lead a lot of people to wonder what

5:41

was going on at home to make him say that. But

5:44

in addition to Jim's movements all week

5:46

and long being confirmed by police, everyone

5:49

who was close to Heidi said that her relationship

5:52

with Jim had been good for some time.

5:55

The last text between Jim and Heidi

5:57

were not contentious. They were warm.

5:59

Heidi was thanking Jim for all that he did

6:01

for their son. Jim told

6:04

police that he and his son last heard

6:06

from Heidi at around seven pm that night,

6:08

October seventeenth. Heidi

6:10

had responded to one of her son's texts

6:12

about the football game. Heidie's

6:15

son sent another text a little while later,

6:17

talking about a play he made, but this

6:19

time Heidi didn't respond. In

6:22

fact, that was the last time

6:24

that Heidie's son ever heard from her. Jim

6:28

and his son were worried for the rest of the weekend,

6:32

but Heidi was obviously an adult. She

6:34

was single and dating and had her own life.

6:36

Jim told reporters, though, that Heidi

6:39

never failed to respond to her son, no

6:41

matter what was going on in her personal life

6:44

or how busy she was, she always

6:46

made time for him. Actually

6:49

looking at the court records that document

6:51

the text messages that Heidie's

6:53

son sent to her is heartbreaking.

6:56

On October eighteenth, at seven thirty one

6:58

pm, Heidi's son wrote in a

7:00

text message, can you please call

7:02

me back? I called you two days in a row

7:05

and you haven't picked up. By

7:08

Monday morning, Jim and his son

7:10

still had not heard from Heidi. That

7:12

afternoon, Heidie's son texted again,

7:15

please call or just text me because I want

7:17

to make sure you're okay and I'm worried about

7:19

you. Then he sent another text

7:21

that read, please call mom. I

7:24

miss you and I'm worried about you. The

7:29

next day, October twentieth, was

7:31

the day when Heidi was supposed to pick her son

7:33

up at school, but she never showed up.

7:37

Jim reported Heidi missing. At

7:39

some point, he went into Heidie's townhouse

7:41

with a friend of hers. They found Heidi's

7:43

work laptop there and her work phone.

7:46

Jim took the laptop and the phone.

7:49

Now he did turn over the laptop

7:51

and phone to law enforcement, but apparently

7:53

it took a few days. And at the time,

7:55

a lot of people on online comment

7:57

boards are of course asking if he's so worried

7:59

about her, why would he wait. But

8:03

Heidi was an adult, so she probably

8:05

was not an immediate priority for the police.

8:08

And of course, in every missing person's

8:10

investigation, every single decision

8:12

anyone makes is under a microscope. But

8:15

in my opinion, and according to all

8:17

evidence that has come out, Jim Wayne

8:20

was totally believable, and Jim,

8:22

to his credit, immediately went to the police.

8:25

As we've said, Heidi was an adult. So

8:27

if Jim had any reason to want

8:29

to wait so the investigation would not start

8:32

immediately, he probably could have, but

8:34

that's not what he did. He went to her house, he told

8:36

friends he was calling people. He immediately

8:39

called the police. He insisted that they investigate,

8:42

and he commented to the media. Police

8:45

talked to Heidi's family. Her mom

8:47

told them the same thing Jim had. Heidi

8:49

had been behaving normally. She was

8:52

planning a vacation to New York to visit

8:54

her mom for Thanksgiving, so she

8:56

was happy and she was making future plans. Police

8:59

figured out no one had heard from Heidi

9:01

at all since October seventeenth,

9:06

so they started asking logically

9:08

about Heidie's love life. Now,

9:10

at that time, Heidi had been

9:12

seeing someone who lived in northern California.

9:16

He was a Silicon Valley executive who

9:18

worked for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the

9:20

philanthropic arm of Facebook, which is now

9:22

Meta. Police tracked down Haidie's

9:24

boyfriend, who, by the way, was completely

9:27

cooperative. He was verifiably

9:29

somewhere else on the day when Hidi went missing, and

9:31

he was cleared very quickly by law enforcement.

9:34

But this man did tell the police something

9:36

interesting. He said that Heidi

9:38

had sent him a text asking him to come

9:41

down to LA because she said

9:43

she was afraid of something. But

9:47

this guy was unable to make the trip, so

9:50

actually he told police at first,

9:52

after Heidie disappeared, he thought

9:54

that maybe she was annoyed with him for not coming

9:56

to LA, so maybe she was ghosting him.

9:59

So now the police kind

10:01

of hit a dead end because if this wasn't

10:03

an X, then it wasn't a current. Really relationship.

10:06

Who else would have a motive to want to

10:08

hurt Heidi. Meanwhile, Jim

10:11

Wayne, Heidie's ex husband, was playing

10:13

detective and tracking down his own leads.

10:16

He got the ven number for Heidie's Range Rover,

10:18

but according to court documents, her location

10:21

services wasn't on. He tried to

10:23

find my phone feature on iPhone and Apple

10:25

Watch, but those had also been turned off.

10:28

At this point, Jim told the media he

10:30

was starting to suspect this could be something that was

10:32

planned. He believed this was

10:34

not a random disappearance, and he mentioned

10:36

the legal troubles that Heidie's boss,

10:38

Jason Sugarman, had been having. Then

10:41

there was another big break in the case.

10:44

Jim checked the text messages on Heidie's

10:46

phone, the one he had access to, and

10:48

he found messages from a couple who

10:50

lived in a luxury building in downtown LA

10:53

and this couple said that they had

10:55

Heidie's dog. The

11:03

people who found seven lived in the Hope Flower

11:05

Building in downtown Los Angeles, located

11:08

at twelve oh one South Hope Street. We'll

11:11

get into the history of the building in a little

11:13

bit, but basically it's one of these luxury

11:15

downtown high rises that have sprung up

11:18

over the last couple decades in Los Angeles.

11:20

It bills itself as a luxury high

11:22

rise with rooftop views and a lot

11:24

of amenities. But a lot

11:26

of residents have complained over the years

11:29

that the developers have neglected

11:31

this building, that there's trash in the hallways,

11:34

dog poop everywhere, and management

11:37

that is unresponsive. And I'm not talking about

11:39

just a couple of complaints. If you look at yelper

11:41

views, there are hundreds of complaints

11:43

on there from current and former tenants.

11:45

So there's something strange going on in that building

11:47

in my opinion. But

11:50

getting back to Heidi, this couple

11:52

said that around seven pm on the evening

11:55

of October seventeenth. Now remember

11:57

this was just a few hours after the game, and

11:59

right after Bond got that last text from Heidie's

12:01

phone, they said they found the dog

12:04

seven roaming the hallway of that building.

12:06

Some reports said that the dog was on the twenty

12:09

ninth floor, others said the twenty eighth, but whichever

12:11

it was, Heidi was not with seven.

12:14

Jim went to pick up seven and brought him home. And

12:16

since I know that people will ask, and I'm also

12:19

an animal lover, I will tell you all right now, the

12:21

dog is absolutely fine and apparently

12:23

doing well. So what

12:25

was Heidi doing at the Hope and Flower Building.

12:28

Jim and her friends said they weren't aware of anyone

12:31

she knew in that building or any connection she had

12:33

there, And even stranger than

12:35

that, why would she leave her

12:37

dog who went everywhere with her roaming

12:40

the hallways. According

12:42

to news reports, the building management

12:44

Omni Property were kind of uncooperative

12:47

at first, but police got a search warrant

12:49

and after that, Heidie's friends

12:52

and family said the building did give them the access

12:54

they needed and became more helpful. Meanwhile,

12:57

some of them were wondering if the thing that Heidi

13:00

had been afraid of could have been connected to

13:02

her job and her boss, forty eight year

13:04

old Jason Sugarman. According

13:06

to Heidi's LinkedIn page, she worked for

13:08

Coldwell Banker between two thousand and five

13:10

and twenty fifteen, then Douglas

13:12

Element, so she was working in real

13:14

estate before she moved on to her job at

13:16

a company called Camden Capital Partners.

13:19

This was Jason Sugarman's company, and it's

13:22

a company that is described as quote

13:24

an investment advisory firm that handles

13:26

wealth management and legacy planning for prominent

13:29

high net worth individuals. End quote.

13:32

This could be completely legitimate. There are

13:34

lots of firms like this, but it's

13:36

also very vague, and

13:38

Jason Sugarman would soon

13:40

show up in more headlines. Jason

13:43

Sugarman is connected to a lot of people

13:45

in power. His father in law is Peter

13:47

Gruber, the owner of the Dodgers, and

13:50

Jason was facing some serious

13:52

legal issues, including federal fraud

13:54

charges. He was under investigation

13:56

by the Securities and Exchange Commission. According

14:00

to the indictment, starting in twenty thirteen,

14:02

Jason and his business partner Jason Galanis,

14:05

stole forty three million dollars from

14:07

pension funds of a Native American

14:09

tribe of the Sioux Nation. These

14:12

guys, who were known in the press as the two Jasons,

14:15

were apparently trying to acquire this global

14:17

financial conglomerate made up of insurers

14:19

in Europe and Bermuda, as well as some investment

14:22

advisors based in the United States. In

14:25

twenty fourteen, Jason

14:27

Galanas and his father, John Galanis

14:29

obtained tribal bonds. They

14:31

convinced the tribe they would sell them and

14:34

use the proceeds to invest in the tribe,

14:36

but instead, according to the authorities, they

14:39

didn't. They just basically straight up stole

14:41

the money. And what's worse, this

14:44

was not some kind of Bernie made off type of scenario

14:46

that started out as a legitimate investment. According

14:48

to the sec these guys knew

14:51

they were planning to steal right from the beginning.

14:54

So it's kind of a long and complicated

14:56

story with this money. But to sum

14:58

it up, Jason Galanas and Jason

15:00

Sugarman were accused of stealing

15:03

millions of dollars from the Native American

15:05

Trie Tribal Corporation and from these

15:07

companies they acquired. In

15:09

January of twenty seventeen, Jason

15:11

Galanis pled guilty to criminal charges

15:13

in connections with his fraud. He was sentenced

15:16

to one hundred and seventy three months in jail the

15:18

indictment read quote. Sugarman

15:20

benefited immensely from the scheme. Indeed,

15:23

to a large extent, he was the biggest winner

15:25

from the fraud, ending up with voting control

15:27

over corporate assets that were acquired with bond

15:29

proceeds and from which

15:32

he ultimately siphoned almost nine million

15:34

dollars in cash for his direct and personal

15:36

benefit end quote. So we

15:38

know Jason Sugarman was accused of financial

15:41

fraud. We also know that he has powerful

15:43

friends, including Hunter Biden.

15:46

He even has ties to Hunter Biden's

15:48

now notorious Laptop of shame because

15:51

emails from that laptop, in addition to photos

15:54

of Hunter smoking crack and sex workers,

15:56

reportedly showed that Jason was a director

15:59

and shareholder of a company called Burnham

16:01

Financial Group. If

16:03

this name sounds familiar, that's because it's

16:05

the same group that allegedly pitched a

16:07

major deal to Hunter's Chinese business partners

16:10

back in twenty fifteen. And

16:13

one of Jason Sugarman's partners who

16:15

was also mentioned in that SEC indictment

16:17

is Devon Archer, the longtime

16:20

friend and business partner of Hunter Biden.

16:23

Devon Archer, by the way, was convicted for his involvement

16:25

in that same tribal scam in twenty eighteen.

16:28

Hunter Biden's lawyer, by the way, has totally

16:31

denied all this. He said Hunter's client

16:33

had nothing to do with the Native American bond scheme

16:36

and that the timing was just a coincidence. According

16:39

to the Sun newspaper, the lawyer

16:41

said Hunter's name had been used without his

16:43

permission and that he had taken

16:45

steps to ensure that his business interests

16:48

were not associated with the defendants

16:50

in the tribal bond case. So what

16:52

does all this have to do with Heidi Plank? A

16:55

woman who, by the way, had no background

16:57

in finance when she started working for Jason

16:59

Sugarman's company. She was

17:02

the bookkeeper for that company. And

17:04

then there's what happened next Next. Jim

17:06

Wayne said that on October twenty first,

17:09

right after Hiding went missing, he

17:11

got a phone call from someone at the SEC

17:13

asking questions about Jason Sugarman. And

17:16

then it got even more bizarre.

17:19

Because CBS Los Angeles

17:21

was following the story of Heidi Plank,

17:24

they were somehow able to acquire some surveillance

17:26

video that had been taken outside Heidie's house.

17:29

There's video of Jason Sugarman, after

17:32

Hiding went missing, ringing her doorbell

17:34

and then leaving muffins on the doorstep.

17:37

The news station says this video is

17:39

from a day or two after Hiding went missing.

17:41

They weren't more specific than that. But

17:43

if you look at this footage, it's

17:45

odd because Jason walks up to the

17:47

door rings, the bell just once

17:50

and then kind of seems to PLoP the muffins down

17:52

and then he's out of there. He doesn't

17:55

hesitate, he doesn't try to look inside. So

17:58

now I'm wondering, was he really expressing

18:00

concern or was he trying to make

18:02

it look like he was expressing concern and looking

18:04

for Heidi. Was he going through the

18:07

motions so that he would appear on camera,

18:09

or was Heidie's disappearance totally

18:12

unconnected to him? But perhaps

18:14

he wanted to see if someone was there who

18:17

would give him that work laptop, which remember,

18:19

was inside her house. What did

18:21

the SEC want to talk to Heidi about? Heidi

18:24

obviously is not here, so it's only speculation,

18:26

but she reportedly told friends and

18:28

family that the company had some tax

18:30

filings that were due. She had complained

18:33

that her boss, presumably meaning Jason

18:36

Sugarman, had her name on so much

18:38

of their corporate paperwork. Now, if

18:40

this is true, it's a major flag for

18:42

fraud investigators. In fact,

18:45

this case seems to have a lot of red

18:47

flags for potential fraud investigators,

18:49

including the fact that Heidi was the person

18:51

being asked to sign off on these complex transactions.

18:55

Jim Wayne told the media that

18:58

after Hiding went missing, he called her

19:00

office. He said that Jason didn't

19:02

seem like he was worried about Heidi or

19:04

what happened to her at all, but he

19:07

did say Jason Sugarman was very

19:09

worried about that work laptop. Remember

19:12

this was the work laptop that had been inside

19:14

Heidie's house. Jim had taken it out

19:16

of there and later handed it over to police.

19:20

Jim Wayne told the Daily Mail, quote,

19:22

while I was on the phone with his assistant, I heard

19:24

Sugarman in the background barking at his assistant

19:26

to tell me make sure he knows I want

19:29

my laptop. There was no concern

19:31

at all from my ex wife's employer. It's

19:33

a multimillion dollar company. They

19:35

didn't offer to hire a private investigator or

19:37

put up a reward. The only thing

19:39

they really seemed concerned about was Heidie's

19:42

computer end quote. Again,

19:47

Heidie's job was financial controller

19:49

for Camden Capital Partners, which

19:51

reportedly gave her a salary of one hundred

19:53

and forty five thousand dollars a year and bonuses,

19:58

and Jim made a comment he said

20:01

she always had spare cash lying around.

20:04

Jim Wayne said that someone at Jason

20:06

Sugarman's office had told him they

20:09

believed that Heidi was quote siphoning

20:12

off money from the company end quote.

20:16

So, according to Jim Wayne, someone

20:18

at Jason Sugarman's office was allegedly

20:20

implying that Heidi might have embezzled funds.

20:23

But when Jim talked to The Daily Mail, he

20:26

said he did not believe Heidi was

20:28

to blame at all, and he said if there was any wrongdoing,

20:31

it was from someone at that office, not her. Jim

20:34

said, quote, Heidi knows all

20:37

of Jason's and the company's secrets. She

20:39

knows where the bones are buried. This whole thing

20:41

just stinks. Something just isn't right, and

20:43

I can't put my finger on it. End quote.

20:47

After Hiding went missing, Jim filed

20:49

a petition for temporary emergency

20:51

custody of their son, and

20:54

these court papers, in my mind,

20:56

provide further evidence that there was no

20:58

motive for Jim to do anything to Heidie, because,

21:01

according to the court documents, Jim

21:03

and Heidi shared custody of their son,

21:06

and Jim did not pay Heidi any alimony

21:09

or child support. He had paid her a lump

21:11

sum in twenty twelve and nothing

21:13

since then. So the bottom line

21:15

is Jim Wayne had no obvious financial

21:17

motive to do anything to Heidi. In fact,

21:20

if he did do something to her, it would

21:22

ensure that he would never get the support that he was

21:24

asking for. Some people had

21:26

suggested that Heidi might have disappeared

21:28

voluntarily, and we do have to look at that possibility.

21:31

According to court documents, in the

21:33

past, Jim had alleged Heidi had

21:35

some mental health issues. He said

21:38

that she was addicted to adderall and had

21:40

some kind of breakdown. In twenty fifteen,

21:43

Jim talked to Los Angeles magazine about

21:45

what happened that day. He said

21:47

that Heidi had begun acting strangely while

21:49

they were driving back to her house, that their son

21:51

had been in the car, and that after they got

21:54

back to his place, Heidi freaked out,

21:56

trash Bond's room and crawled out a window.

21:59

Then he said, she started running through the neighborhood.

22:02

Police were called, and when they got there, they

22:05

found Heidy switching an electrical circuit

22:07

breaker on and off. It

22:09

seemed like reading through these court papers, Heidi

22:11

it had some kind of a break with reality. According

22:14

to court records, Heidi agreed to check

22:16

herself voluntarily into a psychiatric

22:18

hospital. But after that

22:20

incident, Heidi got better. She

22:23

got a job. She started working for Camden

22:25

Capital Partners, first as an assistant

22:27

and then by twenty seventeen, is the financial controller.

22:31

After the initial flurry of media activity,

22:34

the case got pretty quiet for a couple of months.

22:36

Then on November fourth, twenty twenty

22:39

one, police announced they had

22:41

found Heidi's Range Rover in the parking

22:43

lot of a residential building that was a few

22:45

blocks away from the Hope and Flower building where

22:47

seven was found. And after

22:49

that police announced another break

22:52

they had more video footage of Heidi, footage

22:55

that had been taken on that same day. On

22:57

October seventeenth, at around six

22:59

thirty pm, hours after

23:02

she left her son's game, she was

23:04

in downtown La walking in an

23:06

alley between eleventh and twelve Streets. This

23:09

is the little alleyway that runs behind

23:11

the Hope and Flower building where the dog was found.

23:14

She appeared to be wearing the same clothes

23:16

and the sweater that she had been wearing earlier.

23:19

She was wearing thisweater she had had tied around

23:21

her waist. One

23:23

of her friends told a local news station KTLA

23:26

that Heidi looked like she was taking her dog

23:28

for a quick walk. Now, there

23:30

were some people out there who said that

23:33

Heidie's hair looked darker, like she was wearing

23:35

a wig. But I've looked at this footage and

23:37

to me, that appears to be just a late

23:39

afternoon lighting. It clearly looks like

23:42

Heidi. She's wearing the same clothes she was wearing

23:44

that morning, and her dog is walking

23:46

with her. Heidie's

23:49

friends told local news stations that

23:51

this was a major break in the case because

23:54

if the couple's timeline was correct and they

23:56

had found the dog roaming the halls at around seven

23:58

pm, that narrowed down the window

24:01

of time when Heidi went missing to around

24:03

half an hour or so. In

24:05

the surveillance video from the alley, Heidie

24:08

was wearing the same sweaters she had tied around her

24:10

waist earlier, so she probably

24:12

went there right after she left the game. Also,

24:15

people who watched the video pointed out you

24:17

could see Heidie's purse, and by the way,

24:20

this was at the height of COVID, she seemed

24:22

to have a mask in one hand, which meant

24:24

that she was probably visiting someone in

24:26

that building, so it seemed like

24:28

she either parked her car, took

24:31

her purse out, and was on her way up to the building,

24:34

or it's also possible she had been visiting

24:36

someone in the building, already left

24:38

her purse in the apartment, and ducked out

24:40

for a quick dog walk. And

24:43

again, none of Heidie's friends or family

24:45

had any idea who lived in

24:47

that building, who Heidie might have been going to see,

24:49

or what she was doing there. But

24:52

another one of Heide's friends told reporters

24:54

they had talked to building staff and

24:56

apparently they recognized Heidi

24:59

and her dog. Seven Attention

25:01

focused more and more on the Hope and Flower

25:04

Building, the last place where Heidi

25:06

was seen alive. As

25:15

I said before, this, Hope and Flower Building

25:18

was very controversial if

25:20

you look at the yelperviews the residence.

25:22

Claim that there has been theft, drug

25:24

use, dogs defecating on their terraces,

25:27

piles of trash in the hallway. They

25:29

claimed that their secured parking spaces are

25:31

constantly vandalized and broken into.

25:34

After Haidi disappeared, I got several

25:37

messages from people who were friends of hers. I

25:40

also went to a prayer vigil for Heidi that

25:42

was held at the Hope and Flower Building. I met

25:44

some of the residents there, and later some of

25:46

the former residents contacted me

25:48

and talked to me about the LAPD investigation.

25:51

They told me that the police had been in that

25:53

building, that there had been a foul

25:56

stench coming from the trash chute.

25:58

They had heard a rumor that a bloody

26:00

mattress or possibly even a body

26:02

had been taken from the building. Then

26:05

the news broke. The LAPD was searching

26:07

Shaquita Canyon landfill, which

26:09

was about forty miles away, the same landfill

26:12

where the Hope in Flower Buildings trash was dumped.

26:16

The police has not revealed much about what

26:18

they have found inside the Hope and Flower building,

26:21

but on their website they did state that quote,

26:23

forensic evidence was located inside

26:25

the building, which has led detectives to believe an

26:28

incident occurred resulting in Plank's death

26:30

end quote. The LAPD

26:33

stated that they believed something bad

26:35

did happen to Heidi and that they believe

26:38

that it happened to her at that downtown building,

26:41

and they said they believed that Heidi

26:43

Plank was dead, but

26:45

they didn't give any more specifics. They didn't

26:48

talk about what the evidence was. They haven't

26:50

asked the public for information, so

26:52

really it's been kind of a black hole. In

26:56

December of twenty twenty three, over two

26:59

years after she went missing, Heidi

27:01

Plank was officially declared dead. A

27:03

judge ruled she had died at around nine

27:06

pm on the night she disappeared on October

27:08

seventeenth, twenty twenty one.

27:10

There have been a few theories put

27:13

forward by people commenting online by armchair

27:15

detectives. One theory

27:17

was that Heidi maybe was in trouble,

27:20

maybe she did something at work, maybe

27:22

she knew too much and something

27:25

led her to voluntarily go missing. I'm

27:28

not buying that theory. First of all,

27:30

I don't think there's any way that this woman would

27:32

have left her son with no explanation. And

27:35

secondly, other than her son,

27:37

she loved her dog more than anything in the world,

27:40

and I don't believe she would have just dumped her dog at

27:42

this building. And of course, anytime

27:44

you do have someone with a background of mental

27:46

health issues or potential substance abuse, you

27:49

have to ask could that have happened again? Again,

27:52

I think that that's very unlikely, mainly

27:54

because she was acting normally. This

27:56

woman's employed, she had a good relationship

27:59

with her friends and family, and she had a son

28:01

who she called every day.

28:05

Or some other rumors going around,

28:07

including one by an

28:10

amateur detective who posted on YouTube.

28:12

She said she had talked to people in the Hope

28:14

and Flower building. She told the Sun newspaper

28:17

that she heard Heidi went to a party there

28:19

on the night she disappeared that she had gotten

28:22

adderall from a man she was dating, and then

28:24

apparently overdosed, possibly

28:27

because the drugs were laced with fentanyl. Then,

28:30

according to this person, the people

28:32

in the apartment panicked and Haidie's body

28:34

was thrown down the garbage chute. But

28:37

I have to say there was absolutely no evidence

28:39

that these rumors were true, and honestly,

28:41

not all parts of this story make sense. For example,

28:44

Heidi didn't look like she was dressed to party.

28:46

She looked like she was out on an errand when

28:48

she was seen on the camera with the dog, it

28:50

was early evening, six thirty or seven

28:53

pm. And finally, if there was a

28:55

whole party full of people as this

28:57

person described, it seems really

28:59

hard for me to imagine that no

29:01

one from the party talk. The whole thing got

29:03

completely covered up, and that they threw a body

29:06

down the trash chute without it being found.

29:09

But I do have a lot of questions

29:11

about that building and about the

29:13

people on the penthouse floor. Jim

29:16

Wayne has said he was told by police that

29:18

up to five people know what happened to Heidi,

29:21

But which five people? Five

29:24

people in the apartment building, And if

29:26

that's true, again, it's very

29:29

hard for me to imagine a world where there was

29:31

not surveillance footage showing those people,

29:34

even though it was COVID and a lot of places

29:36

were probably being rented off the books. Surely

29:39

they must be able to get the names of the people

29:41

who were in the apartment on that day.

29:44

The whole thing is very bizarre, and

29:46

I don't think I've ever actually seen a case where a dog

29:49

was found in a location that

29:51

was completely foreign to everywhere in the victim's

29:53

life, and there's no trace of the victim. Jason

29:57

Sugarman kind of disappeared from public view

30:00

after Hiding went missing, and

30:02

I'm going to say again he has not been charged

30:04

with anything or any sort of wrongdoing

30:06

in connection with her disappearance. On

30:10

January tenth, twenty twenty three, the

30:12

United States District Court for the Southern

30:14

District of New York entered a final judgment

30:17

against Jason Suggermant. Jason

30:19

was ordered to pay over ten point two million

30:21

dollars in connection to the scheme to defraud

30:23

pension funds. Devin

30:25

Archer was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

30:28

He appealed and he is still out

30:30

on bail. In January twenty twenty

30:32

four, a judge denied his appeal, so

30:34

his case is continuing to work its way through

30:36

the court system. Bond and seven

30:39

are living with Jim Wayne. Jim

30:41

told Los Angeles magazine six months

30:44

after Heidi disappeared, quote,

30:46

our son wants to know what happened to his mother.

30:49

I want to know what happened to Heidi. I

30:51

still think her boss has something to do with this, in

30:53

one way or another. End quote.

30:57

There was another update story done in twenty

30:59

twenty four, near the two year

31:01

anniversary of her disappearance. Heidie's

31:04

family posted a bill of her in Los Angeles.

31:08

Right now they hope that someone will

31:10

come forward. The family

31:12

is created an email address Heidi

31:15

Plank H E I D I P

31:17

L A n C K at

31:20

ProtonMail dot com. The

31:22

Los Angeles Police Department is asked anyone

31:24

with information call the Missing Persons Unit

31:27

at two one three nine nine six

31:29

one eight zero zero. I'm

31:32

Katherine Townsend. This is Helen

31:34

Gone Murder Line. Helen

31:38

Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans

31:41

and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and

31:43

narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced

31:45

by Gabby Watts. Special

31:47

thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance.

31:50

Music contributed by Ben Solee. Executive

31:53

producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon

31:55

Barr, and L. C. Crowley. If

31:57

you have a case you'd like me and my team to look

32:00

into, you can reach out to us at our

32:02

Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight

32:04

seven four four six one four five.

32:07

That's six seven eight seven four four

32:09

six one four five. School

32:23

of Humans