[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to least of these, where I cover the cases that need it most, because every life matters and everyone deserves justice.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Leah D in today I'll be covering the case of Crystal Antimic in Los Angeles, California.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get right to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hyde Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods in southwest LA.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to Urbanized LA, Hyde Park became a town as far back as 1887.

[SPEAKER_00]: And by 1922, that small town was incorporated as a city, with its very own government completely separate from that of Los Angeles.

[SPEAKER_00]: But that didn't last long, and by May of 1923, residents of Hyde Park voted to merge with LA.

[SPEAKER_00]: Though it was now governed by Los Angeles, Hyde Park always kept its sense of community.

[SPEAKER_00]: Many of the families living in the neighborhood for generations, while the streets are mostly lined with palm trees and there are plenty of parks throughout the community.

[SPEAKER_00]: As with any larger city, crime has a way of sneaking in and taking root.

[SPEAKER_00]: Again, not unlike many of the major cities in the U.S.

[SPEAKER_00]: and the late 80s and early 90s, violent crime was at its peak, according to the Pew Research Center.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 1994, the 6,000 block of Brihurst Avenue in Hyde Park is where six-year-old Crystal Antemic called home.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that is at least part of the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal traveled back and forth from her mother's home in Sanamanaca to her father's home there in Hyde Park, a home that had been in her father's family for generations.

[SPEAKER_00]: The morning of June 30, 1994 started off much like any other summer day in Southern Los Angeles.

[SPEAKER_00]: The sun was shining, the weather was damn near perfect, the temperature and the high 70s.

[SPEAKER_00]: School was out and the kids in the neighborhood were outside, soaking in all the summer they could.

[SPEAKER_00]: The L.A.

[SPEAKER_00]: Times reported that Crystal Timic was playing near her home with her three brothers, Jeffrey, Michael, and Sean.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal was six and her brothers were all older between the ages of eight and twelve.

[SPEAKER_00]: The children were picking peaches from their neighbor's tree, which was only about four to five houses down from their father's home.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyhow, the kids were picking peaches from the neighbor's tree and throwing them over the roof of the house to see who could throw the furthest.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this was 1994, and there wasn't all that much to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: So a little friendly peach throwing competition seemed like a great way to pass the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: As the four kids played in the afternoon or early evening, their grandmother called for them to come in, it was some time between 2 and 5 p.m.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that's a pretty wide time window, but unfortunately it's the only window we got.

[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to narrow the time down since it's crucial to what happened next, but in all of the reporting, that is the given time frame.

[SPEAKER_00]: So somewhere between 2 and 5 p.m., their grandmother called for them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when she did, they didn't hesitate to come running.

[SPEAKER_00]: You see, they all had plans that evening, plans that they were looking forward to.

[SPEAKER_00]: The family was gonna watch the Lion King together.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that would have been a huge deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to IMDB, the Lion King premiered in New York City on June 12th and had a limited release in theaters in LA on June 15th.

[SPEAKER_00]: So just two weeks prior.

[SPEAKER_00]: remember when movie releases used to be exciting?

[SPEAKER_00]: Those were the good old days.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when the siblings heard their grandmother calling, they took off running.

[SPEAKER_00]: As they were headed home, they turned back and in a split second their sister was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: At first they must have thought she just fallen behind and she'd make it back to the house in a few moments.

[SPEAKER_00]: But Crystal Anne never made it [UNKNOWN]: You [SPEAKER_00]: After six-year-old Crystal Timic failed to return home with her three brothers, her family immediately began searching the neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_00]: Walking up and down the palm-lined streets and asking anyone and everyone if they had seen her.

[SPEAKER_00]: According to reports, they searched for roughly an hour, but with no sign of the little girl, the family called police.

[SPEAKER_00]: The cops showed up in full force, nearly a hundred police officers in agents from the FBI scoured every inch of the neighborhood, looking for any clue, and when nothing was found, police began to suspect that little crystal had been abducted.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was considered to be an endangered missing child.

[SPEAKER_00]: This, of course, all happened before the Amber Alert system was created, but the LAPD did everything they could with the tools they had at the time.

[SPEAKER_00]: By the evening of the 30th, a localized tactical alert was issued, meaning that police officers in the area remained on duty, even after their shifts ended.

[SPEAKER_00]: Off duty officers were called in, realizing that time was of the essence, [SPEAKER_00]: By 430 a.m.

[SPEAKER_00]: they had found no trace of the little girl, no clue as to who had taken her, or what direction they were headed.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had absolutely zero to go on.

[SPEAKER_00]: One minute Crystal Timic was throwing peaches with her older brothers, and in the next, she was just gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: At 4.30am, the tactical alert was cancelled, but that didn't mean the search was over.

[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it was just beginning.

[SPEAKER_00]: TV News reports blasted Crystal's photo, [SPEAKER_00]: Missing person's flyers were distributed by her family and volunteers.

[SPEAKER_00]: The news reports and missing flyers listed crystals description.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was roughly four feet tall with blonde hair and hazel eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lasting wearing a pink t-shirt, flowered shorts, and white sneakers with a little mermaid design.

[SPEAKER_00]: The City Council immediately put up a $10,000 reward for information, and police officials left no stone unturned, even going as far as turning to psychics to try and find Crystal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her photo was placed on Milk cartons, Billboard's trucks, and her case was featured on America's most wanted with John Walsh.

[SPEAKER_00]: The attention on Crystal's missing persons case did generate leads, and investigators track down every one of them.

[SPEAKER_00]: One, led them nearly a thousand miles north to Corvallis, Oregon.

[SPEAKER_00]: and an article published in the Corvallis Gazette on January 20th, 1996.

[SPEAKER_00]: Corvallis Police published a photo of Crystal asking anyone to come forward with information.

[SPEAKER_00]: The article stated that Crystal had been seen near the Corvallis Benton County Public Library and Cub Foods in September and October of 1995, which would have been a year and three months after her disappearance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Initially, that lead seemed promising, but ultimately it was just another dead end, and the year ticked on with six-year-old crystal still missing.

[SPEAKER_00]: In March of 1996, the City of Los Angeles placed an ad in the LA Times offering a $25,000 reward.

[SPEAKER_00]: That reward came with an expiration date of May 5th, and hopes that it would drive someone to come forward quickly.

[SPEAKER_00]: But again, Crystal remained missing.

[SPEAKER_00]: As time passed, the news cycle does it always does, and Crystal's story began to fade from the headlines.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was until 11 years after her disappearance.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 2005, when the search for Crystal heated up again.

[SPEAKER_00]: In 2005, Crystal's Hyde Park neighborhood was swarmed with more than 100 Los Angeles police detectives, FBI agents and coroner personnel.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were searching a house directly across a street from Crystal's childhood home.

[SPEAKER_00]: While authorities didn't publicly link the search to Crystal Timic, family members told the LA Times that the department had reopened Crystal's case.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal's family and residents from the neighborhood rushed to the scene, hoping that investigators would find some clue as to what happened to a Crystal Temic.

[SPEAKER_00]: They watched and held their breath as officials descended on a home at Brenhurst Avenue and 60th Street.

[SPEAKER_00]: As it turned out, the search had been prompted by a tip to the FBI about the suspicious burial of an animal around the time Crystal disappeared.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal's brother Jeffrey stood on the front steps of his family's home as he spoke to the L.A.

[SPEAKER_00]: times.

[SPEAKER_00]: He revealed to the outlet that the home across the street being searched used to belong to a female Reverend, who frequently invited neighborhood children in her home for religious services.

[SPEAKER_00]: the Reverend no longer live there, but that's who was in the house at the time his sister went missing.

[SPEAKER_00]: As Jeffrey spoke, he held a photo in his hands of a teenage girl, the resembled crystal, a photo that was taken by a group that tried to help run away teens.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even after a decade had passed, he held out hope that his little sister was still alive, [SPEAKER_00]: The LA Times also interviewed a neighbor, 90-year-old Alice, who was also on her porch watching as investigators searched the Reverend's former home.

[SPEAKER_00]: She recalled to the outlet that Crystal used to play with her grandchildren and that the little girl loved Candy, 11 years later Alice still kept a photo of Crystal in her Bible.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was clear that the Hyde Park neighborhood had never forgotten Crystal, or got over the fact that an innocent six year old little girl had vanished into thin air on their streets.

[SPEAKER_00]: The search of the Reverend's former home was concentrated on the crawl space underneath the house, and officials did recover multiple bones, but ultimately those bones turned out to be animal.

[SPEAKER_00]: collection of bones from fish, cows and dogs.

[SPEAKER_00]: What they were doing in the crawl space?

[SPEAKER_00]: I couldnt tell ya.

[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty strange if you ask me.

[SPEAKER_00]: But after the search of that home, it seemed investigators were no closer to finding Crystal than when they began.

[SPEAKER_00]: And with that, Crystal's case grew cold again.

[SPEAKER_00]: In October of 2010, the National Center for Missing and Exploded Children released an age-progressed image of Crystal, showing what she may have looked like at 23.

[SPEAKER_00]: And again, seven years later in 2017, another age-progressed image, showing Crystal at the age of 29.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal's family has never stopped searching for her, especially her older brother Michael, [SPEAKER_00]: Over the years, women have come forward claiming to be crystal.

[SPEAKER_00]: Michael posted photos and text messages of women who claimed to be trafficked or kidnapped and also claimed that they were actually his missing sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: As unbelievable as it is, this is something many families of missing persons go through and it's rarely talked about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's meant to extort money out of the family.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the person is delusional.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it's purely evil, praying on a family who is already enduring one of the worst things possibly imaginable.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a roller coaster ride through hell, thinking there's a possibility that this is actually their missing loved one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only to find out it's a crackpot with a Wi-Fi connection.

[SPEAKER_00]: Michael weeded through the false claims holding out hope each time that this time he would find a sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: He did this until his dying day.

[SPEAKER_00]: An August of 2022, Michael passed away, never knowing in this life what happened to his little sister.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal Antemic remains missing.

[SPEAKER_00]: She would be 38 years old today.

[SPEAKER_00]: While Little is known about Crystal, her mother once described her as a fighter, and said that her little girl enjoyed arcade games.

[SPEAKER_00]: Crystal was born on September 23rd, 1987, in Los Angeles, and last seen on June 30th, 1994, and Hyde Park between two and 5 p.m.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the time of her disappearance, she was approximately four foot tall and weighed 60 pounds.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's a white female with blonde hair and hazel eyes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Lasting wearing a pink t-shirt, flowered shorts and white sneakers with a little mermaid design.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you have any information about the disappearance of Crystal Antemic, please contact your local FBI office.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that my friends is all I've got for this week.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for caring.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you know something, say something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, be good to each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey there, I'm so glad you decided to stick around.

[SPEAKER_00]: This case is so difficult because there are so few leads.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I believe that this case is still solvable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Things like this just don't happen in a vacuum, and there is someone out there who knows something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I say this all the time, but I'm gonna say it again.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is so beyond time to come forward.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't imagine just thinking that your kids are out there playing safe in the neighborhood, you know, in a sense, I don't know what's more innocent than kids like picking some peaches off of a tree and throwing them at a roof.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I was a kid, you know, growing up in the 90s, too, and just aged myself, but whatever, we didn't have peaches because we were in South Florida, but we had oranges.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we like to throw the mortgages in every witch direction.

[SPEAKER_00]: We simply this game called Snipes or just throw them in each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: But this case really hit me in the heart because that could have been any one of us.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we were definitely more than four or five houses down from our home because we lived in a rural area.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was probably, man, we might have been a mile away.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, somewhere off in an orange grove, just playing.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be the time you get abducted.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's little girl was four to five houses down in the middle of a summer day with her three older brothers.

[SPEAKER_00]: You would think that safety and numbers she would have made it home that day, but in an instant she was gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's so little to go on.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know there's probably going to be a few people who can get upset that this episode is short and there's not that many details, but I never turned down a case because of that and crystals case deserves to be solved.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a long time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Her family has waited a long time for answers.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them already going on to glory without them.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they have the answers now, but I just can't imagine at one moment your child's there and then the next moment they're gone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't even know what direction to look in.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for her brothers that has to be horrifying, they were right there, but unfortunately, they didn't see anything that's how fast it happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, it's just sad, six years old is so little and so young and no one seems to have a clue, but like I said, somebody out there knows, okay, I know that they do this didn't just happen and nobody saw nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody's family member, somebody talked about it, somebody out there knows.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if that's you, you should do the right thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of glad that tonight's episode was a little short for another reason, I don't normally get to personal on here, but I think tonight I will.

[SPEAKER_00]: So my family has been dealing with a bullying issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, probably since last school year, my daughter is 14.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's her first year high school.

[SPEAKER_00]: So last year would have been eighth grade.

[SPEAKER_00]: She went into ninth grade and my daughter is a ray of sunshine and she is sweet and I never thought that she would be the victim of bullying ever because she's also pretty brave.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think most of y'all know that we've moved.

[SPEAKER_00]: My husband was in the military and we finally retired and we're back to where we're from.

[SPEAKER_00]: So at her prior school, she had a friend who had special needs and there was an incident where a boy was actually a boy.

[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't even putting his hands on the other little girl.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was just in her space and she wanted him out of her space and he wouldn't listen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my daughter jumped over a desk and got into a physical altercation with this boy so that he would leave her friend alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: So I never would have thought that bullying would have been an issue for her.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, because she's real good at sticking up for her friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, real good.

[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't get into much trouble for that because, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it doesn't matter.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we've also always had an open door where she's can tell me literally anything and we've always told her that if someone puts hands on her or if someone's being mean to her then she has a right to defend herself and that's something she's been taught since she was a a small wee child.

[SPEAKER_00]: And for the past, I guess last year wasn't as bad, but since school started and we started in early August, I did know that there was some mean girl stuff going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: She's in a classroom [SPEAKER_00]: And I know there was some mean girl stuff going on, and it was really silly.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, like kids making comments about a show she likes to watch that most of them kids watch too.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, don't even get it twisted, but just comments and I would tell her, oh, don't worry about them.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just, you know, do you she has her little friend.

[SPEAKER_00]: She had one real good friend at school, a couple others that were nice, but there were several who were just mean.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just ignore it, and you know if it gets to, if it gets to me too much, I mean, you know what to do.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not gonna say it here.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're a legal purposes, my friend.

[SPEAKER_00]: But we always had that open door and I just didn't think it was that bad for her and then I found out From someone else just how bad it was and when I did I sat my daughter down and said hey, listen, I'm just letting you know They you don't have to stay at the school Like you always have an exit you have an out so if it's getting too much for you to handle You can come to me and we'll figure it out [SPEAKER_00]: And she said, no, mom, I'm fine.

[SPEAKER_00]: That was on a Friday.

[SPEAKER_00]: But over the weekend, I made sure to make it really clear to her like, this isn't a problem if you need to leave.

[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't a problem if it's getting to be too much for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Your mental health is way more important to me than anything else.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we will figure it out pretty smart.

[SPEAKER_00]: I could figure it out and I won't be upset.

[SPEAKER_00]: Still, she went to school that following Monday and then there was an incident with one of the girls that actually put my daughter in physical danger.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when she came home to tell me about it, she wouldn't even tell me about it in the car.

[SPEAKER_00]: Think she was afraid of what would happen if we were sold to school.

[SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, [SPEAKER_00]: She waited till we got home to tell me.

[SPEAKER_00]: She told me what had happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was handled and the school handled it pretty appropriately, but my daughter told me that she was done.

[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't want to go back, and so she was withdrawn from school.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think the thing that I just need to get across to parents is even if you've always had that open door in that honest conversation because we always we always have we've always talked about bullying and how you know it can affect someone and tell me if it's happening and she didn't though because it's easy for her to stand up for her friends, but it's not easy for her to stand up for herself.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to work on that okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I just think it's so important for parents to know that it's rough out there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the things that kids are bullied for are absolutely stupid, like I can't think of a dumber reasonablely somebody than a TV show or cartoon or whatever, like, come on, man.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like it was that bad in our day.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like we were that petty.

[SPEAKER_00]: But these girls these days and I'm sure boys too, but I don't have a boy in that age group yet, but these girls these days, they're petty and they're mean and I'm sorry, there ain't no school worth your child's mental health because one of the leading causes or.

[SPEAKER_00]: kids in the teenage age range, one of the leading causes, if not the leading cause, I'd have to look that out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't quote me, because I know that it changes, but suicide is way up there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of that stems from bullying and isolation and just just absolutely mean this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my daughter came to me before it got that that deep and that hard for her, but she's still struggled harder than I wish you would of because let me tell you something.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they know school worth it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We figured it out in less than a week how to get her in a different school.

[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, we're really excited for her to start because this school offers even more.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what was a bad thing ended up being a positive thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: There were signs I [SPEAKER_00]: missed, you know, she's never been one to be very like involved in the social activities or a girl like girl and she would come home from school and she would just kind of be sad, but she'd be fine, you know, a few minutes later and I thought, ah, she's just stressed out, it's probably just a long day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I should have cried more.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I say that being the mom that asked every day like, how was your day?

[SPEAKER_00]: What did you do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who did you talk to?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who were you eating with [SPEAKER_00]: But still she went through more than she needed to and when it got to the point where her physical being was in harm, I mean that was the instant I already made it my mind she was she was gone she was done and so did she.

[SPEAKER_00]: Talk to your kids and ask too because one of the things that I was glad happened is there were other children who came to me and told me what was going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it may be it's not your kid that's getting bullied, but they're aware of who it is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Talk to the teachers, talk to the administrators.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the other mistake I wish I hadn't made is that I didn't because I didn't think it was that serious.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was just comments.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's all it was [SPEAKER_00]: And I wish I had went to them sooner because when it was brought to their attention, they did handle it.

[SPEAKER_00]: But um, how can your baby, especially your girls like I just don't understand the meanness I don't and you know, I'm not trying to get in any trouble here, but.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been trying to live my life right for a long time now.

[SPEAKER_00]: But let me tell you, when someone's bullying your kids, it almost makes you return to your former ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: So let's just all be, let's take a moment and be grateful that I'm saved by grace and trying to walk.

[SPEAKER_00]: walk with Christ these days, because they're ain't done like seeing your baby hurting.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll never forget to look on her face.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I am so glad that we are in a better place now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Talk to your kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I've been on a three-week streak of saying, talk to your kids, but y'all talk to your kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: This world is the one crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: And kids are getting meaner by the day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them [SPEAKER_00]: they need to be a little more than top two.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I better get off of here before I end up with a lawsuit and an officer at my door.

[SPEAKER_00]: You all know I love you more in my luggage and I can't wait to talk at you next week.

[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, bye, both thing.