(Note: be warned, kind of long background info here, but I think it’s needed)
As far as interesting lives, few can beat Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel. Born February 28, 1906 in Brooklyn, New York, Siegel came from a poor Jewish family. Before he was even twenty, he’d established a profitable protection racket and a lengthy rap sheet, including armed robbery, rape, and murder. Siegel had connections—he was childhood friends with Al Capone and familiar with many of the well known New York City mobsters of the day—and he also had a taste for violence. Soon, he’d established a small mob specializing in hits for the numerous bootleg gangs of the time with Meyer Lansky, a fellow mobster. His violence and short temper led some to say he was “crazy as a bedbug,” giving him his famous nickname ‘Bugsy,’ which he even more famously despised.
Siegel was making money, which he was happy to flaunt, but he wanted more. He carried out several hits for Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and eventually formed Murder Inc. with his associates, establishing himself as a skilled hitman for the National Crime Syndicate, an organization of mob families. But Siegel was already making enemies, and several assassination attempts were made on his life, some of which came very close to being successful. So, it was time to move out west.
In California, Siegel helped establish gambling rackets, drug trade routes, and prostitution rings. His star was rising outside of the Underworld too, and in addition to the numerous politicians and police on his payroll, he befriended stars like Cary Grant and Clark Gable. Incredibly, while in Italy with a socialite in 1938, he met Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels, whom he immediately disliked and offered to kill. The offer was declined by his lady friend. Yet Siegel was not always looked upon fondly by the upper echelons of Hollywood; he borrowed exorbitantly from celebrities, knowing he would never be asked to pay it back, and began to develop extensive plans to extort movie studios. After several trials and acquittals for failed and successful hits, it was time to leave California.
Siegel’s next stop was Las Vegas where, in 1945, he purchased and developed the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, the first luxury hotel on the Vegas strip. As you might imagine, that was expensive, and over the course of its construction, costs were equivalent to over $61 million in today’s money each year. Siegel’s checks were bouncing, and many of the locals felt threatened by him. Mob bosses were beginning to lose patience with Siegel too, and he was refusing to report on business, claiming he was running the California Syndicate himself. For now, they left him alone—he'd been valuable in the past, after all.
The Flamingo Hotel was a dismal failure, and people—very powerful people—were starting to get tired of waiting for the promised money to materialize. By 1947, it was gradually turning around—with the help of Meyer Lansky, now in Vegas—but for most, it was too little too late.
Death:
On June 20, 1947, Siegel was gunned down in the Beverly Hills home of his sometimes-girlfriend Virginia Hill. He was 41. Somewhat suspiciously, Hill had taken an unscheduled flight to Paris the day (or by some sources, week) before. As Siegel sat reading the newspaper with associate Allen Smiley, an unknown assailant fired with a .30 caliber military M1 carbine through the window, striking Siegel many times (NSFW). Two shots hit his head, with one passing through his right cheek and the other his nose. Though he was not hit directly through the eye (NSFW), a bullet-in-the-eye death became a popular trope in Mafia media, including in the Godfather, where a character based on Siegel is murdered in the same manner.
The death was covered extensively in the media, which portrayed Vegas as a bastion of sin and mafia activity. As early as the day after Siegel’s death (or, as some sources have it, during Siegel’s death), however, more personal things were changing: Lansky walked into the Flamingo and took over operations.
Theories:
The mob is famously tight-lipped, and Siegel’s death was no exception. Despite the extensive speculation, no precise motive has ever been confirmed. There was a massive police investigation, but in a case like this, that doesn’t mean much, nor does the media coverage. The media in particular salivated over the potential for splashy crime stories, and the circumstances of this case have been complicated by contemporary coverage. Several days after Siegel’s death, for example, one newspaper ran the headline “BUGSY'S BLONDE EX-WIFE GIVES CLUES TO HIS KILLERS,” while another read “BUGSY'S EX NO AID IN HUNT.” As far as the most popular theories:
A Mob hit: A mob hit seems like the most obvious cause, and it's a theory that’s been popularized by several novels and the 1991 movie Bugsy. It would certainly make sense; it was the mob’s money Siegel had been spending wildly on his unsuccessful hotel after all, and he’d been growing uncooperative. Of the proposed hitmen, the most often mentioned are Frankie Carbo (Ralph Natale, former Philadelphia boss and Mob squealer, claimed Carbo as the true killer) and Eddie Cannizarro, both Syndicate hitmen. But even here, there are several proposed reasons for the hit. As some have it, mob money from the Flamingo’s funding was going missing and Siegel was skimming off the already meager profits. Skimming could have been forgiven, if the Flamingo was a success. It was not. After a meeting of the Syndicate’s “Board of Directors,” it was allegedly decided that Siegel would die, with Lansky reluctantly agreeing. Others believe that a hit might have been ordered whether Siegel was skimming or not; the Flamingo was simply too expensive. As one historian put it, “Bugsy was a dreamer. And he was dreaming with other people’s money.”
Yet many have also argued against this theory. According to one of Siegel’s emissaries in Vegas, for example, no one would have dared to order a hit on Siegel. He and Lansky were close until the end of their lives, and Lansky would never have agreed to it. And if Lansky would not agree, then Charles “Lucky” Luciano, who was “the head of everything,” would never have agreed either. And as others have argued, the method of execution (NSFW) didn’t match with typical mob methods; firing a weapon from outside a house increased the risk of missing as well as the risk of being seen. The preferred method was a clean shot to the back of the head. According to some, the oft-referenced money problems of the Flamingo also wasn’t an issue. At the time, Lansky was paying back any investor who wanted out, and the gradual uptick in its profits was quickening by the day. Personally, I don’t think the financial uptick invalidates the theory. If the hotel was starting to make more money, then that might be all the more reason to get rid of the difficult-to-manage Siegel and take over.
Wire Business: At the time of his death, Siegel was embroiled in a dispute with Jack Dragna, dubbed the Capone of Los Angeles. Siegel and Dragna had had an uneasy partnership in previous years, but Dragna, far less powerful than Siegel and the New York gangs, resented the income and respect Siegel commanded. This came to a head when a racing wire service (a way of cheating on bets) between the two of them soured. Siegel wanted control for himself, and ordered Dragna to turn it over or be killed, to which Dragna agreed. After Siegel’s death, control was returned to Dragna. He had a motive, but his story would only have been one among many for a man as ruthless as Siegel, which, in a way, complicates things further—there’s a real possibility that the culprit in Siegel’s murder was someone never even considered. His list of enemies was long, varied, and probably mostly unknown. Yet another man who had reason to want Siegel dead, for example, was his bodyguard and muscle Mickey Cohen. A Cleveland gangster, Cohen was given control of the Syndicate’s West Coast gambling operations. If Siegel still lived, he would never have gotten it. Interestingly, he, like Al Capone before him, was eventually felled by tax evasion.
Virginia and/or brother: The same emissary of Siegel who shot down the mob hit theory believed that Virginia Hill’s brother had carried out the murder. The brother, a marine stationed at Camp Pendleton named Bob or Bill, had seen Siegel and Virginia fighting outside the Flamingo as well as the bruises Siegel had left on her and threatened to kill him. Another of Virginia’s brothers, Chuck, was also at the Beverly Hills house when Siegel was murdered.
Virginia herself has also been the subject of suspicion. Nicknamed the “Queen of the Mob,” Hill worked, among other powerful jobs, as a cash courier, laundering money and stolen goods as well as blackmailing high-ranking men through sexual liaisons. Her relationship with Siegel was tempestuous at best, and she may have been embezzling from the Flamingo. She’s also been accused of two-timing with rival mob operations, though this is unconfirmed. Eventually fleeing to Europe permanently, Hill died of an overdose in 1966, though some have alleged that she was actually murdered after she, completely broke, attempted to leverage her intimate knowledge of the Mob.
Rival Mobs: Unfortunately, I can’t find much concrete information about this theory (note: story of my life researching these posts haha), but some believe that rival mob operatives wanted Siegel gone. He was a powerful—and very public—figure, which made him something of an obvious target in the cut-throat world of Mafia politics.
Moe Sedway: This is a relatively new theory, emerging after Robbie Sedway was interviewed for LA Magazine after his mother’s death. Here, he alleged that Siegel’s murder was ordered by his mother Bee, the wife of powerful mobster—and childhood friend of Siegel’s—Moe Sedway. According to Bee, who wrote and scrapped a book proposal called Bugsy's Little Lunatic (Siegel’s nickname for her), Siegel had threatened her husband, who was the Flamingo’s numbers man, and therefore watching Siegel—who, remember, had been accused of skimming—closely. So Bee contacted Mathew “Moose” Pandza, a truck driver whom Bee married after Moe’s death. Moose, the perfect killer, since he had no connection to the Mob, then shot Siegel to death. The problem with this theory, however, is that Bee is the only source; as she herself said, anyone who could contradict her was dead. She also squandered most of the fortune left to her by Moe over the course of her life, and died almost penniless.
All of the above: Some believe that almost all the suspects were involved. Usually, it goes something like this: “Virginia supplied the location and received some reward. Cohen knew Bugsy's schedule for the evening, but happened to not be watching him that night…Dragna ordered the hit, with the approval of Lansky and Luciano.” It’s unlikely, but it certainly has its believers, if only for the convenience of it.
Final Thoughts & Questions:
This case is interesting to me because of the sheer number of suspects. In the end, a mob hit seems the simplest and most likely explanation. But there were so many people with means, motive, and opportunity. So:

• Why was Siegel killed and who killed him? The Syndicate, rival mobs, Virginia Hall, her brother, Mickey Cohen, Jack Dragna, Mathew Pandza (as ordered by Moe and/or Bee Sedway), several of the suspects, or someone else entirely?

Sources:
https://www.lamag.com/longform/mobster-murder-moll-secret/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/lasvegas-bugsy/
https://themobmuseum.org/blog/killed-benjamin-bugsy-siegel/
https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Bugsy_Siegel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugsy_Siegel
https://themobmuseum.org/blog/virginia-hill-queen-of-the-mob-was-no-ones-pushove
To many, Siegel’s legacy exceeds his mob connections, and in some ways, even his death; without him, many believe, there would be no Vegas. So if you take anything away from this write-up, let it be this: The Blue Man group’s Vegas residency is Bugsy Siegel’s fault.

RoyalRoad
First
Next
Jen and Sarah spent the next week doing research. The Internet was filled with contradictory information about monetary theory and economics, and neither of them really had the background to evaluate the arguments that everyone was having.
However, Sarah reminded them both, they didn't need to look at a perfect system, just one that worked. So, they started digging through Wikipedia articles and online textbooks on the history of money and how they came to be.
"Hey, did you know they used to use salt as currency?" Sarah asked as she skimmed through a particularly fascinating documentary about Middle Age East African economies.
"Is this some kind of joke about mining salt?"
"No, it's real, look. And apparently the word salary is from the Latin word salarium for money used to buy salt," Sarah continued fascinated.
Of course, they couldn't use something as simple as salt to represent money. In fact, they couldn't use any commodity either.
Over the last week, one of the alien traders caught wind that gold was extremely valuable on Earth, so they'd brought them in by the ton load. Gold was still useful for electronics and some dentistry, but the price of gold, mostly propped up by its value in rarity, crashed hard.
The problem with currency in galactic trading, as Sarah discovered, was that there wasn't a single commodity that was equally rare in every system.
No, whatever alternative they come up to the laughably outdated barter system had to be built on something far more rare and valuable than gold.
Something that even the most powerful human empires in history have struggled to collect.
It had to be built on trust.
"That's the system most modern currencies are based on," Sarah claimed, "you only accept dollars for work because you trust that you're going to be able to wake up tomorrow and spend it on… everything you need."
"Hmm well, we can't just ask them to take US dollars," Jen giggled. This would be so much easier if that weren't true.
"Why not?" Sarah asked, playing the devil's advocate.
"Well… well, like you said, they won't trust it! I certainly wouldn't if I were a trader! Furthermore, who knows? Maybe they have a printer in their ship that can duplicate money! Maybe we should ask them for that next time we bring Zarko some pears," Jen said, thinking out loud.
"I doubt it. The government keeps a lot of secrets about how they make Dollars , and I don't want the Secret Service knocking on my door," Sarah said. Until this week, she hadn't known that this was one of the lesser known duties of the USSS. Now that she knew it, it made the thought of attracting their attention even less palatable, "you're right. What about digital casino tokens? We can produce something that translates to Dollars and have our own system that tracks it all."
"Sure, that's not too hard to make. We would have a centralized money supply, where we don't trust each end point…" Jen continued on the brainstorm, thinking in terms of the technical system, "ok, so say we make SarahBucks, and peg its value to the US Dollar. One pound of pears would be worth 1.5 SarahBucks, one pound of sirloin steak is 6.99 SarahBucks at Safeway. That still doesn't explain how we'll get people to use it."
"I'm not sure. I need to think about this more," Sarah yawned, tired. "And I hate that name."
They agreed that they were stuck, and that SarahBucks was absolutely a terrible name.
Livermore Spaceport, Earth
A month after the spaceport opening, Sarah noticed that it had become less of a tourist attraction. There were far fewer people standing around gawking at the aliens, and a lot more companies trucking their best-selling products into the spaceport for trade.
After their abuse of Jen's cousin's employee pass got discovered by the spaceport authorities, Sarah and Jen had started placing their own bids on getting into the spaceport through the official channels. Thanks to their existing connections with the managers at the spaceport and a growing bank account of value, they could still get in to continue their lucrative trade for magical alien goods.
A bit of a rich-get-richer type of situation.
The flavor of the month were these Bohor magical air filter machines that aggressively scrubbed the air of… anything you want them to.
The Bohor planet is basically the planetary equivalent of a toxic dump.
Sure, it had biomes; it wasn't a Star Wars sci-fi planet where the entire planet is either a desert or an ice-cold tundra or a forest. But the entire planet had been polluted so heavily by its occupants that it lowered the life expectancy by half before the Bohors found a solution:
They simply filtered their entire atmosphere through air filter machines and then buried the toxins and garbage they got out of it in a very deep landfill, somewhere where very few people lived. Pretty much the kind of solution you'd expect out of a species that created the original problem in the first place.
Zikzik, the alien that was the same species as Zarko, overheard a human asking about their rocket fuel and climate change, and brought in a cargo hold of them.
It was a massive hit.
Earth's climate change problem wasn't nearly as bad as Bohor, but it was relatively simple to program these machines to suck carbon out of its atmosphere and… bury them in a landfill.
At first, few of the human traders bought them, thinking that it was going to be at least a while before the problem became big enough that big governments were going to come to them to try to address the issue, but they had it all wrong.
Soon as word got out this was an option, big companies and philanthropists started lining up at their doors. As it turned out, literally sucking the carbon dioxide out of the air was easier and cheaper than modifying many of their industrial practices to actually be environmentally green. They didn't need to run more efficient factories to claim to be carbon-neutral; just pump as much carbon into the air in exchange for undoing that by sucking it out of the atmosphere after!
Some bean counters at a think tank in DC predicted that a few more shipments of these air filters will fix Earth's climate problems by themselves in about a decade, so every trader had a waiting list of corporations with PR problems willing to buy them.
Sarah and Jen had a couple vehicle manufacturing companies on their list who were trying to get Bohor air filters to use in lobbying for looser emission standards for their dirty gasoline cars.
Today, there were traders on all the landing pads, and they were all carrying air filters. Zarko's ship was there, and he was loading fruits into his spaceship with an alien looking forklift. Sarah and Jen approached his ship and noticed the truck driver standing there.
"Hey Benny, tempting the poor aliens with cherries this time?" Sarah waved good, grinning and looking at his cargo.
Technically, Benny is a competitor, or at least he drives for a competitor. The massive fruit conglomeration he worked for, Chuckita, had not neglected to notice the massive business opportunity sitting right here as many others have, and are now delivering straight to the aliens in exchange for massive profit margins.
But Benny was a good guy. One time Jen and Sarah were having some trouble finding a buyer for a bunch of legally dubious alien psychedelics. Benny was in his late 50s, not that great with the Internet either, so he'd introduced them to whom he referred to as "my money launderer". Aka, his 22-year-old son, Benny Jr, who had a habit of buying weed and other less than legal items off the deep web. Benny Jr had found a buyer for them within minutes and even generously offered to handle the deal for them to spare them the risk of meeting some psycho hopped up on an alien high in a dark alley somewhere.
"Heh! One of the bat aliens loves sweets but has a low tolerance for sour, so they treat cherries as some kind of an odd challenge fad. They eat a random cherry, and it's either so incredibly sweet they start drooling out of the mouths, or it's a sour one, and they freak out," Benny replied, in a low voice as if he were trying to keep it a big secret. "Zarko showed me a video, and it's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen".
"I think I've seen that one, have you seen the one where they drink wine?" Sarah chuckled at the memory. Alien videos have been a big hit on YouTube. Some human merchants were trading fruit for aliens to take videos of the galaxy. Which they monetized, of course.
"No," Benny's ears perked up. Chuckita doesn't make wine, but if selling wine to aliens was going to be a thing, they were a big supplier of grapes… "Is it gonna be a thing?"
"Well guess what we brought today?" Jen also grinning from ear to ear, and holding up a big carton of low-quality box wine.
"Awww seems like I'm always one step behind you guys," Benny moaned in exaggeration, "I tried to get my money launderer to tell me what aliens would want but all he does is play video games on the Internet, kids these days."
Luckily, Zarko chose this moment to step out to spare them from more good-humored ribbing from the boomer. "Ah Sarah and Jen, you brought the grape wine this time!"
"Yup," Sarah beamed, "and I see you've run out of air filters to trade again!"
"Sadly yes," Zarko tilted his head in shame, "my ship is overdue for a cargo space upgrade, but I haven't found a port that would do it for fruit yet. Next time?"
"Alright! Alright! We'll leave our special wine with you, but you better get us some extra good filters next time!" Jen scolded mockingly. Zarko has gotten a lot more comfortable doling out IOUs since the first time.
"Of course. Only the best for you two," Zarko said with a greasy human smile imitation that almost made Sarah laugh out loud. It reminded her of a ridiculous cartoon sloth.
"By the way," Sarah asked casually, "how much is a spaceship worth on your planet?"
Zarko sobered up his expression and looked at her curiously. It was a question that other humans had asked before. To him, it was a good sign. This meant that they all dreamt of the stars. But he didn't expect such a question from someone as seemingly practical as Sarah. She had a lot of fruit, sure, but fruit doesn't build spaceships.
After thinking for a while, he replied honestly, "ships aren't traded for one single item. My family traded for the parts to build mine for generations."
He pointed at his spaceship.
Zarko proudly explained, "this is the work of eighteen generations of trading. My family was one of the richest on Zeep-zep. For thirteen generations, they traded for each of the parts on this beauty. Then, for the last five, my ancestors traded excess food from the tenant farmers on their land to expert craftsbeings that could put it together."
"Wait, eighteen generations?" Jen gasped. Eighteen generations ago, her family were probably peasants on a farm in Korea or something…
"Yes," Zarko said, looking at them with a little of pity. "After getting the spaceship, my family has traded in it for twelve generations, through civil wars and disasters."
He did some math on his hands, and said, "that's about four hundred of your years. That's why it's very unlikely that you will never go to space."
Looking at the stunned expression on their faces, he tried to lighten the mood. Zarko said mischievously, "unless you're willing to part with some more of your fruit, in which case I'll let you sit in the back seat for a whole route!"
"Hold on, back up, I'm still stuck on the multiple generations part," Sarah said seriously. "You're saying you're flying on a spaceship that started to be built thirty generations ago? That's… about a millennia for us."
"Yes," Zarko answered, "and that's why only thirteen families on my planet have had the privilege of owning one in our long history. No offense, but that's why I think no human will ever own their own spacecraft for at least fifteen more generations."
Something is wrong here, Sarah thought. The budget for NASA's FTL spacecraft was in the hundreds of millions. Yes, for a fruit farmer, that would be many generations of work if all their descendants worked in the same industry. But there were over three thousand billionaires on Earth, not including the tens of thousands of corporations that had assets or market value over a billion. And the prices for the spacecraft would surely go down as time went on…
For a planet like Zarko's to only have thirteen spaceships over generations of their development…
As they were walking away, Benny asked, "have you guys noticed something weird about the way these aliens do business?"
"Yes." "God yes." They said in unison.
"We've been thinking about it for a while, but these guys not having money is a major problemo," Sarah said, looking around surreptitiously, "Zarko and Zikzik keep talking about not being able to find someone who can upgrade their hulls for fruit. And sometimes they come with nothing good, and we're supposed to just drive our fruits all the way back!"
"And if you think about it, if they were human ships, think about truckers who don't own their trucks. We'd have loans or something to deal with the cargo space problems, and they'd be paid for by profits in a few trips," Jen added.
"The numbers he gave us for spacecraft ownership seem insane," Sarah agreed. "Your company could probably afford to order one right now, not to mention hundreds of others. They must all be dirt poor!"
Benny seemed relieved that he wasn't the only one who was thinking this, "exactly! I'm thinking we just introduce them to the concept of Benjamins and solve all their problems and ours. Would certainly make the return trip a lot easier for me if I didn't have to drive all the way to Berkeley for junior to launder all this crap!"
"We thought of that too," Sarah said as Benny pretended to groan again, "but we couldn't figure out how to get them to take money with no intrinsic value."
"Oh that shouldn't be too hard," Benny said, who's clearly already thought through this problem in his head, "we play a little game called good cop, bad cop."
"Good cop bad cop?"
"Sure, it's a mind game the cops play, where they put you in a room-"
"Yeah we know what it is, but how does that help us?" Sarah said impatiently, an idea tugging on her subconscious.
"Well you see," Benny clearly smugly enjoying this moment where he's thought of something that the duo did not, "you two come with an empty truck next time, and you tell Zarko that you'll give him a wad of clean crisp cash, fresh from the bank, for some of his air filters. And when he asks you why he'd take the cash, you just tell him that he can give it to me in exchange for some of my fruits."
"What does that have anything to do with good cop bad cop?!" Jen asked.
"That has nothing to do with good cop bad cop," Sarah chimed in, but the idea was beginning to form in her head, "but it's a good start. We don't want to deal in cash. It's too risky. It could get the feds onto us and there's a bunch of laws around it that I'm not sure about."
"But what we can do is have an internal money system for traders pegged to the US Dollar!" Jen completed.
"Yup, so when Zarko comes back next time, we tell him he has an account with the Bank of Benny, we give him a fancy looking card that has his bank account number and give him a pin code, and we deposit a certain amount of BennyBucks into his account for giving us air filters. Then when you come around, Zarko gives you his card and pin, and gives you BennyBucks for your fruit," Sarah finished.
"Aha. And then I come to you two, say, I would like to convert BennyBucks in my Bank of Benny account to good old American dollars," Benny extrapolated, completing that final step.
"Yeah! We'll just wire you the money and everyone gets theirs," Sarah exclaimed, happy they've finally thought through the loop and gotten someone on board.
"BennyBucks is a terrible name though," Jen said, calming everyone down a little, "and why are we getting so excited over the basic concept of currency? And why haven't aliens figured this out? Maybe it's against some kind of space trading code."
"Who knows? Maybe we just try it on Zarko and see if it works out," Benny said, a glint in his eyes, "and then we expand, galaxy-tically."
"Galactic credits!" Sarah exclaimed, "that's what we'll call it."
They agreed that it was the least worst name that they'd come up with so far. It was boring, but when it came to finances, maybe boring and cliché was a good choice after all.
"Explain again. I am trying to understand," Zarko said two days later as he offloads the air filters he'd promised.
"C'mon dude, for the fifth time," Sarah exasperated, "it's not that hard. We give you a bank account card and have you set up a secret number…"
Jen had spent the last two days coding up a storm. Technically, a simple debit system wasn't that hard, but she had to make a website interface that Benny could go up to and enter his account, Zarko's card information and amount, then let Zarko type in his code…etc. She'd mused that it would have been easier to just do this all in a cloud-based spreadsheet, but that wouldn't scale up if they had more customers.
Sarah had the account cards laminated and designed a logo: the letters GC, for Galactic Credit, and a stylized version of a Milky Way in the background. Part of the value in a trustworthy system is to look official, and you can't get much more official than laminated cards.
"Yes, I understand that part," Zarko said, clearly displaying his frustration on his facial expression as well, "but I don't understand why Benny would give me his fruit for just entering a number."
"Because we have an agreement with him that he'll take it in exchange for fruit!" Sarah was sure this was the umpteenth time she had to explain this, but clearly Zarko was not getting it.
"Is it similar to a debt?" Zarko said suspiciously, as if debt was this dark magic that the humans were performing on him, "I have never heard of this kind of debt before."
"Yes, it's a debt, of sorts," Jen cut in. The last time he had asked this exact question, they'd said no, and that led to fifty other questions and explanations that went nowhere, so nothing could go worse if they said yes-
"Ok. I don't understand," Zarko did his sloth version of a sigh, it was cute, but at the same time frustrating for Sarah and Jen, "But I can try it. I know you two are not trying to trick me. Do I get my fruits before I take off?"
"Yes! You go to Benny-" Sarah started.
"Yes! And that's it. Benny gives you his fruit," Jen cut her off, knowing that this was about to launch into yet another long, long line of questions they just can't deal with right now.
Sarah set up a new account for Zarko, asked him for a 6 digit base ten pin code (thank god Zarko was a ten digit species) which he promptly memorized, and hoping that Jen's prototype website wouldn't fail, showed him how they were "giving" Zarko 40,000 Galactic Credits for 8 Bohor air filter machines into his account ("No, you can't have my iPad. It's on your account card now. Show this to Benny later.")
"Well that worked out great," Benny said as he watched them wire him the $25,000 for his truck shipment of fruit. Though his costs were in the low thousands, he could have easily fleeced Zarko for his full 40k. But they all agreed that wasn't the point, which was to get Zarko to see the benefits of using a currency system abstracted from goods and services.
"Dude, you weren't there," Sarah complained, "I don't understand why he had such a hard time understanding money. Money equals goods. Bing bang boom. It's like these guys don't have the capability for abstract thinking."
"No they definitely do. You can't build spaceships without abstract math and science," Jen said, "but he clearly had a deathly aversion to using money. I think it's tied to some taboo to debt somehow. All the other species must have it because none of the aliens we've met have even mentioned anything close to a real economy."
"Whatever it is," Benny sighed happily, "I'm just happy I didn't have to go home with my truck full of weird alien toys."
"Yup. The next step is to get all the human traders to take credits. At least they'll have no problems understanding the benefits."
Sarah made some calls to the trader licensing office at the spaceport. There she found a manager willing to part with phone numbers and contact information for the other human traders, for an "information fee" of course, and started making calls to the other human traders.
It wasn't easy. Some traders were representatives of bigger food companies, and didn't have all the flexibility to make these kinds of decisions. And others no doubt were thinking of copying their system for their own profit. But they all saw the benefits of a unified network of currency debiting because they've been suffering the same problems that Sarah, Jen, and Benny had been.
Over the next few days, all the human traders agreed to take galactic credit from the aliens, which they knew they could exchange for cash with Sarah and Jen.
"We are officially in business."
In economics, there's a distinction made between different kinds of money. There's commodity money, usually gold or silver. There's representative money, which is currency backed by commodities like gold or silver. And then there's fiat money, which is not backed by any intrinsic value, but rather by government decree, hence fiat.
Galactic Credits fall into some kind of weird hybrid category between representative and fiat money. They're backed by the Dollar, which is fiat money, but also which makes them representative money. This means that the people issuing them, in this case Jen and Sarah, are not supposed to create them without also having a corresponding US Dollar in their bank account.
Of course, Sarah and Jen hadn't signed an ironclad contract with the other human traders that they're always guaranteed to take their galactic credits and exchange for money, so technically that meant that one day Sarah could simply "deposit" a large number of credits in her account and buy all the goods she wanted from Zarko, or potentially the other traders.
That would, however, be slaughtering the golden goose for the meat.
After all, they didn't want to sell fruit or Bohor air filters.
They wanted to sell the concept of money.
"Why would I take this over fruit?" Zikzik sniffed. He was known as a sharp one by all the human traders. If there's any new alien fad coming down the pipeline, chances are Zikzik is the first one to touchdown with a cargo hold full of it.
Unlike many of the other traders, he was fairly consistent in his dealings. This much fruit is for this much air filters. He knows his price, and he lets you know it too. Everyone suspected he kept careful records of all his selling and buying somewhere in his ship, but he's never brought them out. Maybe he just had a sharp memory.
"It's very consistent," Sarah insisted, trying to appeal to his affinity for a stable and predictable exchange, "one pound of fruit today is the same as one pound of fruit tomorrow, and you can deal in fractions."
Completely ignoring that most fruits are seasonal, and price changes, and inflation, she thought, let's start here.
"Fractions, you say?" Zikzik seemed thoughtful, or maybe he's just scratching an itch on his snout, Sarah could never tell with these aliens.
"Yes, fractions," said Jen detecting the slightest bit of opening, "you can trade your air filters for credit. Then you can trade maybe three quarters of your credits to fill your cargo with fruit. The next time you come down here to Earth, you would only need to bring half the amount of air filters as the first trip, combined with the credits you have left, you can leave with a full cargo load anyway!"
Is that how that math goes, Sarah thought, but didn't cut in, as Zikzik seems to be nodding, an oddly universal gesture for affirmation.
"Five eighths of the credits," Zikzik argued, "The air filters are harder to get now because the Bohor are running low, and they need time to make more."
Bargaining! There we go! That's what we're talking about! Sarah almost pumped her fists in the air and gave him a high five, not a great idea given how sharp his claws are as she found out when trying to shake his hands a couple of weeks ago.
"Ok, you would still have to negotiate that amount with each human trader," Sarah replied adding, "but they all deal in Galactic Credits."
They signed him up for an account, gave him a card, and set up his pin code. It had only taken half an hour to get Zikzik on board, which was significantly faster than the hours they'd taken to explain this to Zarko, despite them being the same species. Was it xenocist that she'd assume it was going to take just as long, Sarah wondered.
Looking at the line of traders, she sighed. This was going to be a long day.
Luckily, Zikzik accepting the credits made for great advertising. He was known for being a sharp trader, so if he doesn't think it's a scam, it must not be, right?
Sarah and Jen managed to get two other traders that day onto credits, and one more who was dipping his proverbial toes into the water.
It was a good day.
Jen had been working hard. The Galactic Credits website was now on its 16th major iteration. She'd beefed up the security on it, to make sure none of the other human traders got any funny ideas. Backups became more automatic and frequent, and there was now a rollback and dispute mechanism, not that it was being used yet.
Sarah had also been working hard. She'd been sitting in meetings all day with legal, finances, and now they had a small army of people who were ready to help out if they got into trouble there. Galactic Credits is now officially a tax paying LLC incorporated in the great state of Delaware.
Benny Jr, who had just finished college, had come in as well. He was no good at talking to clients, but he's what the duo would refer to as "street smart". Occasionally, the alien traders would bring in some exotic or ahem, dubiously sourced items, and he would know exactly where to convert that into cold hard cash. On the spreadsheets, his dealings were adding up to a nice fat padding on the margins for Galactic Credits, which to this point, hasn't been making any money other than in the fruit and air filters exchange business.
They were now working out of a rented office in downtown Livermore, with a very nice view of a brick-lined pub that offers numerous craft beers and the old railroad that runs through the heart of town.
Ironically, there's a Bank of America branch across the street, not far from the office itself, the company that had invented the BankAmericard and started the credit card revolution, seemingly oblivious to this new competitor moving into town, literally and figuratively.
They had many brilliant finance experts who were working on something, surely, but established financial institutions are not always great at moving fast and adapting to changing technology. There were many regulations to worry about, and the stakes were a lot higher.
There's something very quaint about the town itself. Some people didn't consider it part of the Bay Area metro area itself, but with the latest BART expansion station they recently built, that's been less and less true.
Now, it was literally the town where the train tracks ended. And where the final frontier began.
For the people in the office, it's also where they dreamt about a new financial revolution in the galaxy.
Some people have critiqued this chapter on the grounds that established financial institutions would have thought of this idea on day one. I appreciate the feedback, but that is a rosy view of the velocity at corporations in my opinion. I've personally worked in some of these companies, and if someone brought up this idea, it would probably have taken at least a month to get the idea through various risk audits and legal reviews.
In terms of technology, much of banking still operates on software that predates the modern Internet. This is one of the reasons why fin-tech startups have been able to beat them on time-to-market, despite massive institutional or financial disadvantages. It's why companies like PayPal, Square, Stripe, Venmo… etc could compete with the incumbents with the development of the Internet.
Sure, an intern in engineering or tools would have a semi-working prototype by week three, but the first line of code would be pushed to production by… month three. A much more likely scenario: some startup beats them to the punch, exactly as it happens here, and the large company offers their founders or investors an obscene amount of money to buy them out.
RoyalRoad
First
Next

What really happened to Mitrice Richardson the night she disappeared?
In the early morning hours of September 17th, 2009, a beautiful young woman named Mitrice Richardson was released into the night from police custody without a phone, or any way to get home. Her body was found almost a year later. The mysterious circumstances surrounding her death remain unsolved.
On the evening of September 16, 2009, The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department from the Malibu/Lost Hills Station received a call from the affluent, upscale restaurant of Geoffrey’s, with the employees of the establishment claiming a woman was acting erratically, bizarre, and was refusing to pay her bill.
Beginning otherwise as a typical Southern Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson graduate of Cal State Fullerton, who normally had dinner with her great grandmother on Wednesdays, decides to switch course. Feeling compelled to embrace the cool breeze of the ocean on her skin, she heads to Malibu and begins her 40-mile trek along the Pacific Coast highway.
As Mitrice ventures into the outskirts of Malibu, just as the sun begins to set, she is captivated by the luminescent beams of lights beating off the golden sign of Geoffrey’s and makes the decision to pull into the restaurant, a pivotal decision that would change the lives of many as they knew it.
Mitrice pulls into the parking lot of Geoffrey’s and is greeted by the Valet. He quickly lets her know it is valet parking only and rushes off to park another guest’s vehicle. When he returns he finds Mitrice no longer in her vehicle, but in his vehicle rummaging through his CDs and speaking in broken sentences. Startled and frazzled the Valet asks what Mitrice is doing in his vehicle and she responds “I’m here to avenge Michael Jackson's death”. The Valet removes Mitrice from his vehicle and ushers her in the direction of the restaurant.
The unusual behavior of Mitrice doesn’t end there. Mitrice orders a $65 steak and cocktail and notices a lively bunch enjoying their meal a few tables over, with a smile never leaving her face, she asks to join them. The group is intrigued by Mitrice’s abnormal behavior but welcomes her to their table. Mitrice goes on to talk about how she is from Mars, her mother was mother earth, and the ocean was calling her. Once the group settles their bill and exits the restaurant, Mitrice attempts to follow but is stopped by the manager as she has did not pay for her bill. Not appearing hostile or angry, the manager asks if there is anyone they can call to pay the bill for her after she claimed she didn't have any money.
At approximately 9:30 pm, 91-year-old Mildred Harris, Mitrice’s great-grandmother, receives a phone call from Geoffrey’s. She attempts to give her credit card information over the phone to settle the bill, but they could not accept it without a signature. With no way to pay her bill, the employees of Geoffrey’s contacted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department about Mitrice.
60 miles away in Eastern Los Angeles, Mitrice’s mother, Latice, is made aware of the unusual situation occurring at that very moment. She calls Geoffrey’s directly and finds out Mitrice has just been taken into custody by the officers. They go on to tell her about the behavior Mitrice had displayed, and that Mitrice’s vehicle was about to towed to a location very close to the restaurant, but far from the Lost Hills Station where the police had taken Mitrice. Feeling helpless, and unsure what to do, Latice calls the Lost Hills station and confirms with the deputy a woman is en route to the station from Geoffrey’s. Unable to pick up her daughter from the station, Latice is worried about Mitrice’s well-being and doesn’t want her released in the middle of the night without a phone or vehicle. The Deputy assures Latice that she will be contacted once Mitrice arrives at the station, but that call never came.
As soon as Latice wakes up the following morning she calls the Lost Hills station hoping to figure out how to get Mitrice home. She is told that Mitrice was released 5 hours earlier at about 12:30 am. They claimed they had no reason to hold her because she had no criminal record and was not exhibiting signs of mental incapacitation, despite her unusual behavior. Mitrice was released into the dark gloomy night without any form of communication, transportation, or assistance from officers. According to Steven Whitmore of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, officers said, “You can stay here if you wish. You can stay in a cell, but you can stay here, but she declined that offer”.
Panic begins to set in as Latice becomes aware Mitrice has not spoken to anyone since being released from the station, and she realized the moment she had feared the most was here. Immediately sensing something was not right, Latice calls back the Sheriff’s Office and asks how long she would have to wait to file a missing person’s report. The Deputy, seeing Mitrice was released just hours ago, encourages her to wait 24 hours before reporting her missing. With nothing left to do but wait, Latice questions how Mitrice could have possibly been released without a mental evaluation?
At about 6:30 AM that Thursday morning, The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department receives a call from a Monte Nido community resident, located about 7 miles from the station. The resident, a former news anchor, reported a young, strange woman was in his backyard. When asked if she was okay, she responded that she was just “resting.” Once he called the police, she was gone. It was later confirmed that young woman was Mitrice Richardson by cadaver dogs that were able to catch her scent in his backyard.
But how did Mitrice get 7 miles away without her vehicle?
Monte Nido is a vast landscape of mountains and terrain, a location that would be difficult to navigate for a non-local, especially in the dark hours of the night. According to Mitrice’s family members, Mitrice was known to be afraid of the dark.
On September 18th, Mitrice’s family members gather together to discuss Mitrice's bizarre behavior in the days leading up to her disappearance. They begin to see the warning signs that something with Mitrice was not right. Mitrice had been sending erratic text messages, that did not make sense, almost gibberish. The day before she disappeared she visited her aunt’s house and left business cards from her go-go dancing job scattered everywhere. The strangest occurrence being an unusual note left on Latices husband windshield with “black women scorned” written across it, a smiley face, and had been signed off with a kiss.
In the days before Mitrice disappeared, she was posting unusual things on Facebook, and Myspace. Posting at all hours of the night, investigators were unable to understand when she slept. A psychologist that works with the LAPD assessed Mitrice was exhibiting signs of a mental health condition, possibly bipolar disorder.
During the subsequent investigation, the family of Mitrice is made aware they found money and her wallet inside her car, with officers somehow overlooking it the night she was arrested.
Days pass with unanswered questions, repeated attempts to get Mitrice’s police report are overlooked. Mitrice’s family attempts to access police footage of Mitrice at the station that night, but their request is denied. LAPD cited “they need to follow proper protocol in order to release information to the family,” and they had no footage to even give to Mitrice’s family.
Feeling like their pleas to police were going unanswered. The family of Mitrice hired civil rights lawyer, Leo J. Terrell, who assembles a press conference gathered in front of the Lost Hills Station on Thursday, September 24th, 2009, demanding action of the Police Department. Terrell said at the press conference “If Mitrices name was Spears or Lohan, they would have never let her walkout by herself. They would have escorted her home.”
Months later, as the New year quickly rang in, tensions between Mitrice’s Family and the Los Angeles Police Department continue to grow, a meeting is called between the Sheriff and Captain of Lost Hills. Things quickly take a turn when it comes to light the Police Department did indeed have footage of Mitrice the night she was arrested. They claimed they misunderstood, thinking Mitrice’s family was asking for footage of Mitrice outside the station not a video of Mitrice in the station.
On January 9th, 2010 the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department organized one of the largest searches in the history of LAPD. An 18 square mile search in Malibu Canyon with over 300 trained volunteers participating in air and ground searches. Mitrice was still not found.
Just 3 weeks later, and almost 300 miles away in Las Vegas, Mitrice’s Father, Michael Richardson, alerts authorities that he believes he saw his daughter Mitrice in an area known for prostitution on the Las Vegas Strip. Michael called out to Mitrice but lost her in the crowd. Latice firmly believes that wasn’t her daughter and believes she never made it out of Malibu Canyon.
On June 26th, 2010, Latice and her lawyer file 6 lawsuits against the LA County Sheriff’s Department for negligence and wrongful death. Around the same time, there is another sighting of Mitrice, by a high school friend. At around 3 AM, in a Las Vegas casino, he claimed to have seen Mitrice. He called out to her, but the woman appeared nervous and ran off.
On August 9th, 2010 Malibu State Park Rangers are hiking along the area of Dark Canyon, a vastly remote area, just a few miles from where Mitrice was last seen, searching for any illegal marijuana growing in the area. This area is said to be a very difficult place to stumble upon and very hard to get through. Upon their quest, they discover the mummified naked remains of an African American curly haired woman. Ignoring the proper protocol, the woman was airlifted out of Dark Canyon. The woman was later confirmed to be Mitrice Richardson. A ranch known for producing pornography was adjacent to where Mitrice was found, but no connection has been determined.
Multiple residents in the area reported to have heard screams in the area several nights after Mitrice disappeared, but despite this, Mitrice’s death was deemed not to be a homicide, and no foul play occurred. The cause of death was ruled to be undetermined.
What happened to this beautiful, intellectual, talented woman? Why would police let her go in the middle of the night with no phone or vehicle? Why was she acting so strangely? How did Mitrice end up dead in that creek bed? Too many unanswered questions have consumed the Richardson Family. We need to find out what exactly happened to Mitrice Richardson.
More info:
https://www.murdersandcoffee.com/post/what-happened-to-mitrice-richardson
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-17/mitrice-richardson-reward-malibu
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/sheriff-updates-mitrice-richardson-disappearance-decade-late1965858/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mitrice_Richardson
What do y’all think happened to Mitrice? Do you think she succumbed to the elements? Or something sinister occurred to her that night? Share your thoughts!
I also wanna add her clothes were found scattered around her body. It would be unusual for her to undress and try to maneuver through that creek bed.

What really happened to Mitrice Richardson the night she disappeared?
In the early morning hours of September 17th, 2009, a beautiful young woman named Mitrice Richardson was released into the night from police custody without a phone, or any way to get home. Her body was found almost a year later. The mysterious circumstances surrounding her death remain unsolved.
On the evening of September 16, 2009, The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department from the Malibu/Lost Hills Station received a call from the affluent, upscale restaurant of Geoffrey’s, with the employees of the establishment claiming a woman was acting erratically, bizarre, and was refusing to pay her bill.
Beginning otherwise as a typical Southern Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson graduate of Cal State Fullerton, who normally had dinner with her great grandmother on Wednesdays, decides to switch course. Feeling compelled to embrace the cool breeze of the ocean on her skin, she heads to Malibu and begins her 40-mile trek along the Pacific Coast highway.
As Mitrice ventures into the outskirts of Malibu, just as the sun begins to set, she is captivated by the luminescent beams of lights beating off the golden sign of Geoffrey’s and makes the decision to pull into the restaurant, a pivotal decision that would change the lives of many as they knew it.
Mitrice pulls into the parking lot of Geoffrey’s and is greeted by the Valet. He quickly lets her know it is valet parking only and rushes off to park another guest’s vehicle. When he returns he finds Mitrice no longer in her vehicle, but in his vehicle rummaging through his CDs and speaking in broken sentences. Startled and frazzled the Valet asks what Mitrice is doing in his vehicle and she responds “I’m here to avenge Michael Jackson's death”. The Valet removes Mitrice from his vehicle and ushers her in the direction of the restaurant.
The unusual behavior of Mitrice doesn’t end there. Mitrice orders a $65 steak and cocktail and notices a lively bunch enjoying their meal a few tables over, with a smile never leaving her face, she asks to join them. The group is intrigued by Mitrice’s abnormal behavior but welcomes her to their table. Mitrice goes on to talk about how she is from Mars, her mother was mother earth, and the ocean was calling her. Once the group settles their bill and exits the restaurant, Mitrice attempts to follow but is stopped by the manager as she has did not pay for her bill. Not appearing hostile or angry, the manager asks if there is anyone they can call to pay the bill for her after she claimed she didn't have any money.
At approximately 9:30 pm, 91-year-old Mildred Harris, Mitrice’s great-grandmother, receives a phone call from Geoffrey’s. She attempts to give her credit card information over the phone to settle the bill, but they could not accept it without a signature. With no way to pay her bill, the employees of Geoffrey’s contacted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department about Mitrice.
60 miles away in Eastern Los Angeles, Mitrice’s mother, Latice, is made aware of the unusual situation occurring at that very moment. She calls Geoffrey’s directly and finds out Mitrice has just been taken into custody by the officers. They go on to tell her about the behavior Mitrice had displayed, and that Mitrice’s vehicle was about to towed to a location very close to the restaurant, but far from the Lost Hills Station where the police had taken Mitrice. Feeling helpless, and unsure what to do, Latice calls the Lost Hills station and confirms with the deputy a woman is en route to the station from Geoffrey’s. Unable to pick up her daughter from the station, Latice is worried about Mitrice’s well-being and doesn’t want her released in the middle of the night without a phone or vehicle. The Deputy assures Latice that she will be contacted once Mitrice arrives at the station, but that call never came.
As soon as Latice wakes up the following morning she calls the Lost Hills station hoping to figure out how to get Mitrice home. She is told that Mitrice was released 5 hours earlier at about 12:30 am. They claimed they had no reason to hold her because she had no criminal record and was not exhibiting signs of mental incapacitation, despite her unusual behavior. Mitrice was released into the dark gloomy night without any form of communication, transportation, or assistance from officers. According to Steven Whitmore of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, officers said, “You can stay here if you wish. You can stay in a cell, but you can stay here, but she declined that offer”.
Panic begins to set in as Latice becomes aware Mitrice has not spoken to anyone since being released from the station, and she realized the moment she had feared the most was here. Immediately sensing something was not right, Latice calls back the Sheriff’s Office and asks how long she would have to wait to file a missing person’s report. The Deputy, seeing Mitrice was released just hours ago, encourages her to wait 24 hours before reporting her missing. With nothing left to do but wait, Latice questions how Mitrice could have possibly been released without a mental evaluation?
At about 6:30 AM that Thursday morning, The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department receives a call from a Monte Nido community resident, located about 7 miles from the station. The resident, a former news anchor, reported a young, strange woman was in his backyard. When asked if she was okay, she responded that she was just “resting.” Once he called the police, she was gone. It was later confirmed that young woman was Mitrice Richardson by cadaver dogs that were able to catch her scent in his backyard.
But how did Mitrice get 7 miles away without her vehicle?
Monte Nido is a vast landscape of mountains and terrain, a location that would be difficult to navigate for a non-local, especially in the dark hours of the night. According to Mitrice’s family members, Mitrice was known to be afraid of the dark.
On September 18th, Mitrice’s family members gather together to discuss Mitrice's bizarre behavior in the days leading up to her disappearance. They begin to see the warning signs that something with Mitrice was not right. Mitrice had been sending erratic text messages, that did not make sense, almost gibberish. The day before she disappeared she visited her aunt’s house and left business cards from her go-go dancing job scattered everywhere. The strangest occurrence being an unusual note left on Latices husband windshield with “black women scorned” written across it, a smiley face, and had been signed off with a kiss.
In the days before Mitrice disappeared, she was posting unusual things on Facebook, and Myspace. Posting at all hours of the night, investigators were unable to understand when she slept. A psychologist that works with the LAPD assessed Mitrice was exhibiting signs of a mental health condition, possibly bipolar disorder.
During the subsequent investigation, the family of Mitrice is made aware they found money and her wallet inside her car, with officers somehow overlooking it the night she was arrested.
Days pass with unanswered questions, repeated attempts to get Mitrice’s police report are overlooked. Mitrice’s family attempts to access police footage of Mitrice at the station that night, but their request is denied. LAPD cited “they need to follow proper protocol in order to release information to the family,” and they had no footage to even give to Mitrice’s family.
Feeling like their pleas to police were going unanswered. The family of Mitrice hired civil rights lawyer, Leo J. Terrell, who assembles a press conference gathered in front of the Lost Hills Station on Thursday, September 24th, 2009, demanding action of the Police Department. Terrell said at the press conference “If Mitrices name was Spears or Lohan, they would have never let her walkout by herself. They would have escorted her home.”
Months later, as the New year quickly rang in, tensions between Mitrice’s Family and the Los Angeles Police Department continue to grow, a meeting is called between the Sheriff and Captain of Lost Hills. Things quickly take a turn when it comes to light the Police Department did indeed have footage of Mitrice the night she was arrested. They claimed they misunderstood, thinking Mitrice’s family was asking for footage of Mitrice outside the station not a video of Mitrice in the station.
On January 9th, 2010 the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department organized one of the largest searches in the history of LAPD. An 18 square mile search in Malibu Canyon with over 300 trained volunteers participating in air and ground searches. Mitrice was still not found.
Just 3 weeks later, and almost 300 miles away in Las Vegas, Mitrice’s Father, Michael Richardson, alerts authorities that he believes he saw his daughter Mitrice in an area known for prostitution on the Las Vegas Strip. Michael called out to Mitrice but lost her in the crowd. Latice firmly believes that wasn’t her daughter and believes she never made it out of Malibu Canyon.
On June 26th, 2010, Latice and her lawyer file 6 lawsuits against the LA County Sheriff’s Department for negligence and wrongful death. Around the same time, there is another sighting of Mitrice, by a high school friend. At around 3 AM, in a Las Vegas casino, he claimed to have seen Mitrice. He called out to her, but the woman appeared nervous and ran off.
On August 9th, 2010 Malibu State Park Rangers are hiking along the area of Dark Canyon, a vastly remote area, just a few miles from where Mitrice was last seen, searching for any illegal marijuana growing in the area. This area is said to be a very difficult place to stumble upon and very hard to get through. Upon their quest, they discover the mummified naked remains of an African American curly haired woman. Ignoring the proper protocol, the woman was airlifted out of Dark Canyon. The woman was later confirmed to be Mitrice Richardson. A ranch known for producing pornography was adjacent to where Mitrice was found, but no connection has been determined.
Multiple residents in the area reported to have heard screams in the area several nights after Mitrice disappeared, but despite this, Mitrice’s death was deemed not to be a homicide, and no foul play occurred. The cause of death was ruled to be undetermined.
What happened to this beautiful, intellectual, talented woman? Why would police let her go in the middle of the night with no phone or vehicle? Why was she acting so strangely? How did Mitrice end up dead in that creek bed? Too many unanswered questions have consumed the Richardson Family. We need to find out what exactly happened to Mitrice Richardson.
More info:
https://www.murdersandcoffee.com/post/what-happened-to-mitrice-richardson
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-17/mitrice-richardson-reward-malibu
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/sheriff-updates-mitrice-richardson-disappearance-decade-late1965858/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mitrice_Richardson
What do y’all think happened to Mitrice? Do you think she succumbed to the elements? Or something sinister occurred to her that night? Share your thoughts!
I also wanna add her clothes were found scattered around her body. It would be unusual for her to undress and try to maneuver through that creek bed.

worldnews

• ZZerker

Angela Merkel: Trump shares blame for US Capitol storming
Comments || Link

• Spiderbling

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern: Democracy "should never be undone by a mob"
Comments || Link

• lurker_bee

Mexican president offers to vaccinate unlawful migrants in U.S.
Comments || Link

news

• douglasmacarthur

Congress has certified the 270 Electoral College votes needed to confirm Joe Biden's presidential election win.
Comments || Link

• mikkeman

Warnock, Ossoff win in Georgia, handing Dems Senate control
Comments || Link

• michuru809

Police remove barriers to mob storming US capitol, taking selfies
Comments || Link

science

• mvea

Before the pandemic, one-third of US households with children were already “net worth poor,” lacking enough financial resources to sustain their families for 3 months at a poverty level. Their savings are virtually nil, and they have no financial cushion to provide the basics for their children.
Comments || Link

• mvea

US politicians who engage in “negative partisanship”, referring to hostile, nonsubstantive rhetoric about an opposing party or statements emphasizing defeats of partisan opponents, are not rewarded with higher evaluations from citizens. Voters don’t want representation focused around polarization.
Comments || Link

• mvea

For young adults in the 18–24-year-old age group, pornography was the most commonly endorsed helpful source about how to have sex, as compared to other possible options such as sexual partners, friends, media, and health care professionals. This was more likely for males and heterosexuals.
Comments || Link

space

• MaryADraper

NASA wants to deorbit the International Space Station before the end of this decade. Axiom plans to replace the International Space Station and potentially save NASA billions per year.
Comments || Link

• MaryADraper

Galaxy-Size Bubbles Discovered Towering Over the Milky Way. For decades, astronomers debated whether a particular smudge was close-by and small, or distant and huge. A new X-ray map supports the massive option.
Comments || Link

• wewewawa

Earth is whipping around quicker than it has in a half-century
Comments || Link

Futurology

• izumi3682

‘Incredible’ gene-editing result in mice inspires plans to treat premature-aging syndrome (Progeria) in children
Comments || Link

• lebookfairy

New Atlas: New catalyst converts common plastic waste into fuels (77%) and wax (15%)
Comments || Link

• Gari_305

U.S. law sets stage for boost to artificial intelligence research
Comments || Link

AskReddit

• Gnerdy

Couples therapists, without breaking confidentiality, what are some relationships that instantly set off red flags, and do you try and get them to work out?
Comments || Link

• jjgp1112

What were weird myths you thought about sex as a kid?
Comments || Link

• bekind888

What’s the greatest mental health tip you’ve gotten?
Comments || Link

todayilearned

• malalatargaryen

TIL in 2013, a 9 year-old British girl passed through Turkish customs with a toy passport with gold teddy bears on the front that identified her as a unicorn. Her mother accidentally handed over the passport that the girl had made for her toy unicorn, and the customs offіcer accepted and stamped it
Comments || Link

• SonOfQuora

TIL Ants sleep by taking about 250 one minute naps throughout their day. It totals just under 5 hours of sleep. This allows for 80% of their colony to be awake, working and prepared at any given moment.
Comments || Link

• bawledannephat

TIL Jerry Seinfeld is banned from the New York soup stall that he used for the basis of The Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld. Weeks after the episode aired, Seinfeld went in for lunch, and chef Al Yeganeh asked him to leave, unhappy with the moniker the show had given him.
Comments || Link

dataisbeautiful

• akrotz1234

[OC] Numerical Simulation of Traffic Jam Formation
Comments || Link

• visvis

[OC] types of alcoholic beverages consumed in terms of pure alcohol content by country, 2018
Comments || Link

• AtomicFrontier

[OC] By applying a collector's curve to large marine animals (>2m) I’ve determined that there are six sea monsters left to discover. Video explanation and sources in comments.
Comments || Link

Cooking

• Instrumedley2018

My cooking challenge of 2020 : ended up making 150 different recipes from 114 different countries.
Comments || Link

• OakTeach

I have plain vanilla ice cream in the freezer. What ice cream toppings can I make quickly out of ordinary ingredients?
Comments || Link

• ErrorSubstantial

Eggs-hate them but I want to like them
Comments || Link

food

• NightsWatch23

[Homemade] Brioche Doughnuts
Comments || Link

• cookinwithclint

[Homemade] Smoked Beef Back Ribs
Comments || Link

• Horatius__Cocles

My take on Tonkotsu Ramen with spicy umami bomb. [homemade]
Comments || Link

movies

• chanma50

New images of Dave Bautista and the cast of Zack Snyder's 'Army of the Dead' - A group of mercenaries plot a heist on a Las Vegas casino during a zombie outbreak.
Comments || Link

• chanma50

Ray Fisher’s Cyborg Written Out of ‘The Flash'; Role Won’t Be Recast
Comments || Link

• CircusSeal

Netflix’s next big science fiction movie is set to debut next week: Outside the Wire, a military science fiction thriller starring Damson Idris as a soldier assigned to assist a classified military robot (played by Anthony Mackie) in a war zone.
Comments || Link

Art

• trey_tallent

If I can't have her... , Adam the Creator, Digital, 2021
Comments || Link

• perfect_wonders

Trump-O-Matic, Mark Bryan, Oil on Canvas, 2016
Comments || Link

• speial

United Screams of America, Me, 2021
Comments || Link

television

• Justausername1234

Stephen Colbert's Live Monologue for Jan. 6, 2021
Comments || Link

• TheDreamIs0ver

Aziz Ansari's Master Of None to return. Season three to be shot in London
Comments || Link

• ArchDucky

WandaVision has been officially rated TV-PG
Comments || Link

pics

• ahvostin

How it started and how it ended
Comments || Link

• JunkInTheTrunk

Domestic Terrorism
Comments || Link

• Mellanchef

The Capitol police removes disabled people as they protest healthcare changes, in 2017.
Comments || Link

gifs

• JVCG

Police letting Trump rioters into Capitol
Comments || Link

• Superiluso

A relaxing bath for a stressful times
Comments || Link

• IchHuhn

BBQ
Comments || Link

educationalgifs

• mtimetraveller

A great white shark may grow and use 20,000+ teeth in its lifetime. Also, it has 5 rows of teeth at any given time & will never run out of teeth because if one is lost, another spins forward from a coil-like tooth reservoir of backup teeth in the jaw and spins forward to replace the old one.
Comments || Link

mildlyinteresting

• carbonbasedcat

This McDonalds hasn't been renovated since the 80's/90's.
Comments || Link

• LordofLoxley

Two toned deer I saw this morning
Comments || Link

• casualmatch

I found a cake vending machine
Comments || Link

interestingasfuck

• LambeauLeapt

During the four years of the Civil War, Ft. Stevens was the closest the confederates got to Washington. During the insurrection on the US Capitol building today, supporters of Donald Trump carried the confederate battle flag through the Capitol as they committed attempted sedition.
Comments || Link

• Inazumaryoku

The door to the dining area of the Alcobaça Monastery in Portugal was made narrow so that monks who got too fat were forced to go into fasting.
Comments || Link

• xLuizordx

Street artist Kevin Lee called his work "the invisibility of poverty".
Comments || Link

funny

• mamabird_2

My little sister bought accessories for her cat. This is the result. Thug Lyfe
Comments || Link

• butteredbuttbiscuit

Giddy up!
Comments || Link

• lolnein

How are we feeling today?
Comments || Link

aww

• ltbluepoetry

My mum made this for me!
Comments || Link

• Sajime

I present to you the best dance move the turtle shake
Comments || Link

• eblax

Kitten focusing on the important stuff
Comments || Link

Random Subreddit of the day: asexuality

These are its 3 top posts of all time:

• AceOfManyYears

I’m 62. It’s time.
Comments || Link

• frozenpandaman

this is so much better
Comments || Link

• softhungrygirl

Representation matters
Comments || Link

A dog-loving stranger tracked down the rest, which is currently available on magnet uri by request.
Here's what we still need to complete the full series and finally preserve it:

Season 2
S02E05 "Reno" (clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgan9UoQIoA)
Standup: Catch A Rising Star. Stops Include: Sundowner Casino, talks with the loung singing Cameron Duo, a peek inside the sexy Moonlite Bunny Ranch, talks with a Whittlesea Taxidriver, and a bite to eat at The Nuggett Diner.
S02E07 "Phoenix"
Standup: The Improv. Stops Include: checking out weird bathroom doors at futuristic Bar6, karioke at the Shangri La Ranch nudist camp, drinks at the Steel Horse Saloon biker bar, discusses code names of felonys with bicycle policemen, delivering with Boston Gourmet Pizza, Mr. Tease stripclub, a chat with a few hobos, Mickey's Hangover, the late shift at Salt River Sand and Rock.
Season 3
S03E03 "Albuquerque"
Attell travels to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he visits backstage with the music group the Scorpions during their tour. Also: a look at the Rattlesnake Museum.
Specials
SP01 "March on the South" (North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia)
Attell tours the South. Included: visits to a raceway track and the Durham Correctional Center in North Carolina; a cotton plant in South Carolina; and a Civil War re-enactment in Georgia.
SP03 "Sloshed in Translation" (Tokyo)
Attell tours the nightlife in Tokyo. Included: a 24-hour X-rated TV station; a fertility festival; a demonstration of Kendo; a visit with American Air Force personnel.
SP04 "Insomni-Achtung Baby!" (Berlin)
In Berlin, Dave Attell tours a bordello, Checkpoint Charlie, an “anything goes” sex club and a U.S Army base. Also: he watches a performance by rapping puppets.
SP05 "Hambone" (Unknown, Wikipedia references this)

So I am extremely intrigued by the Mitrice Richardson case, as I feel like there is just something "off" about it. I've been thinking about posting about it for a while. I did just see a new post this morning with a theory, and figured I'd run through the entire case again to hear what people have to think. I'm not used to this so please be gentle! This is also going to be a long one, so strap in!
I am struggling to get the formatting to work correctly so I apologize.
Mitrice Lavon Richardson was born in 1985 to Latice Sutton and Michael Richardson, though she was raised by Latice and Mitrice's stepfather, Larry. From a younger age, she was extremely drawn to psychology and the way the human brain worked. Mitrice grew up in West Covina, CA and later attended Cal State - Fullerton to pursue her BA in psychology. She was the first person in her family to attend college.
As she approached the end of her undergraduate career, Mitrice decided that she might want to pursue graduate school. During this time, she was dating her girlfriend, Tessa, and also go-go dancing at a lesbian bar.
Leading up to her disappearance, there are conflicting reports on whether or not Mitrice had been acting unusual. According to Crime Junkie, Tessa adamantly opposes the idea that Mitrice was in any way mentally ill or erratic. However, both Crime Junkie and Trace Evidence acknowledge that Mitrice had been sending strange text messages and posting weird posts on social media at all times of the night.
At some point in the investigation, officers also found erratic journal entries where the writing switched from clean and neat, to staggered and illegible, within the same pages, sometimes the same sentences.
Whether or not she had bipolar disorder is also a point of contention. NBC Los Angeles states that she was diagnosed. I have seen some articles state that she was diagnosed, and that her mother admitted this. But other articles, like this one from Fox LA state that family members state that she had no mental health problems.
However, regardless of whether or not she had bipolar disordea diagnosis, I do believe that she was struggling with mental illness in some way. But did this have to do with her death?
On September 16, 2009, Mitrice was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway when she decided to stop at Geoffrey's in Malibu. She got out of her car to wait for the valet - in his car, mumbling about avenging Michael Jackson's death. When she went inside, the valet informed the host that she was acting strangely.
Mitrice sat alone, drinking a cocktail and eating a steak. But then she randomly joined another table of 7 people. She talked quickly about astrology, even mentioning that she was from Mars. At the end of the meal, the other people left. When Mitrice tried to leave, she was stopped and told to pay the $89 bill. Despite the fact that money was later found in her purse, Mitrice told the restaurant that she had no money and thought the table would pay for her.
The manager called Mitrice's great-grandmother Mildred, who agreed to pay the bill. However, the manager refused to take her credit card number over the phone. Eventually, one of the employees called the police. On the phone call, the woman stated, "We have a guest here who is refusing to pay her bill. She sounds really crazy. She may be on drugs."
At approximately 9pm, officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff's Station showed up at Geoffrey's to arrest Mitrice. Officers searched her car and found a small amount of marijuana. LA Mag, who has one of the most comprehensive write-ups of this case I've seen, also notes that the police found partially drunken bottles of alcohol in her car, but I have not seen that anywhere else.
Because employees at Geoffrey's didn't think Mitrice was okay enough to drive, and because of the marijuana, officers performed a field sobriety test. Mitrice passed. Officers do not report finding a wallet, money, or even cell phone in the car. Although the employees at Geoffrey's considered paying Mitrice's bill for her, to avoid her being taken into police custody, they were worried about her mental health and her ability to drive. So they let her be taken away by the police, as the manager chose to press charges.
As this was going on, Mildred called Latice. Immediately, Latice was concerned about how strange her daughter was acting. She called the Lost Hills station and was assured that Mitrice was being carefully watched by the officers. It was late at night by this time and Latice wasn't sure if she should pick her daughter up; the officer assured her that Mitrice would be in custody until morning, so Latice could pick her up then.
According to LA Mag, Latice told the officer, "I think the only way I will come and get her tonight is if you guys are going to release her tonight. She's not from that area and I would hate to wake up to a morning report, 'girl lost somewhere with her head chopped off.'"
Here's what we know.
Mitrice's car was impounded. Mitrice was taken to Lost Hills station, about 25 miles away from Geoffrey's. Law enforcement could have held her under the belief that she might hurt herself or others.
Despite conflicting reports, law enforcement officers state Mitrice was fine. Mitrice was released from custody between 12:15am and 1:25am on September 17. When released, she had no wallet or cell phone.
She used a phone at the station to try and call Mildred. LE states she called 4 times and they heard a conversation. Mildred says she never received a phone call. All phone calls (if any) were made from a non-recorded line.
Mitrice was charged with marijuana possession and defrauding an officer. Because she had no prior record, she was let go with a fine and court date. Officers refused to drive her back to her car (8-13 miles away). Officers told her she could sleep in the lobby until morning. One jailer claims Mitrice said she was meeting friends.
In an article for CBS News, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore stated, "She exhibited no signs of mental illness or intoxication. She was fine. She's an adult."
Mitrice walked into the night, in an unfamiliar area, with no car, wallet, or phone. When Latice called the station the next morning around 5:30am, she was told that her daughter was gone. She asked about filing a missing persons report, but was told it was too soon. Latice told the deputy she was worried about her daughter's mental state, that she might be depressed.
Somewhere between 5:30am and 6:30am, Bill Smith called the Lost Hills station to report a young black women "prowling" around his home in Monte Nido (about 6 miles away from the station). Bill reports that when he asked the woman how she was doing, she replied that she was OK, just resting. Then she disappeared into the night.
Now here's where the Lost Hills station begins to look more and more fishy.
It took 2 days before Lost Hills officers started searching for Mitrice...at Bill Smith's house. Officers declined to use scent tracking dogs that would tell them how Mitrice got from Lost Hills station to Monte Nido.
Officers found shoe prints. It looked like Mitrice was walking, then had suddenly started running towards Dark Creek and Dark Canyon. Officers did not search Dark Creek or Dark Canyon at the time.
Mitrice's case was reassigned twice: first to the LAPD's Missing Persons Unit, then to LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Unit. LAPD officers determined that Mitrice had a manic episode caused by bipolar disorder. When LAPD officers searched her car, they found her wallet, cell phone, ATM card, and enough money to cover her meal - despite the fact that the LASD stated they found nothing.
3 days after her disappearance, the Lost Hills Lieutenant sent out an email about Mitrice, which LA Mag got a hold of. In the email, Lieutenant Scott Chew addresses Captain Thomas Martin, noting that Mitrice was brought in because "[Loureiro] felt she was acting unusual and was uneasy about letting her go. In the end, [Loureiro] brought her because of his instincts. The fact that she disappeared validated his instinct.”
Since then, Chew stated that he did not remember writing the email, or maybe didn't write it at all. Loureiro stated that he never actually had that conversation or asked for a sobriety test for Mitrice. For the next month or so, the LASD frequently spoke to the media to reaffirm that Mitrice had been fine.
Latice then asked for the footage of Mitrice at the station, hoping to get insight into her daughter's condition. She was told that no footage existed. 4 months later, she was told that there was actually a video...but due to "technical difficulties," it took ANOTHER 3 months for the family to receive it.
In the video (which was edited), Mitrice seems agitated, pulling on her hair and on the bars. When she is finally released, the video shows Mitrice walking out the door...with a deputy following quickly after. The police department refused to name the officer or state if he had any contact with Mitrice outside of the station.
In January, there were immense searches of Malibu Canyon; no body was found, and Lost Hills officers refuse to say whether or not they checked Dark Canyon. As time went on, there were some supposed sightings of Mitrice in Las Vegas, in a casino or working as a prostitute. But Latice says she knew her daughter was still somewhere where she went missing. Unfortunately, she was right.
11 months after her disappearance, Mitrice's mummified remains were found in Dark Canyon by rangers, only 8 miles from the Lost Hills station and 2 miles from where she was last seen. You can see the map to get a better idea.
Again, here's where it gets weird.
Mitrice was found naked. Some of her clothes were recovered a few hundred feet away in positions that did not suggest animal involvement. Her bra was unclasped. Her belt was unclasped and removed. Her jeans were unzipped.
An earring that she had not been wearing at the time of her disappearance was stuck in her hair.
Her right leg, with the femur removed, was located 6 feet upslope from her body. Her body, clothes, and leg showed no signs of animal involvement, biting, trauma, etc. Five neck bones were never found.
Mitrice's left arm was tightly flexed over her chest, indicating that she mummified in that unnatural position.
Rangers called in the dead body. Around 1.5 hours later, a Lost Hills deputy (unidentified) arrived on scene. Policy and state codes say that the coroner must be contacted immediately upon finding remains. It took 1.5 additional hours, after the deputy arrived, to call the coroner.
The coroner and his team were told that a LASD helicopter would pick them up and bring them to the body. 2-3 hours later, they were told that the LASD would remove the body instead. Against the wishes of the coroner, the LASD collected the remains and took them back to the Lost Hills station, breaking policy.
Sheriffs took no photographs of the scene, failed to collect soil samples, and did not document the process of recovering Mitrice's remains. When asked, sheriffs stated they pulled on the skull and the entire skeleton appeared. This is untrue, as her skull was detached from her neck.
The LASD stated that they believed no crime had been committed. Rather, they posited that Mitrice had been bitten by a rattlesnake or possibly had a fatal allergic reaction to poison oak. They stated that Mitrice must have been naked because animals ripped her clothes off, but this directly contrasts how neatly the clothes were removed, the fact that the clothes and body show no tooth marks, and that her clothes were scattered around the canyon.
Additionally:
If animals had torn off her clothing, where were her shoes and socks, shirts, and underwear?
Why were her clothes so clean, with no evidence of animal bites or even dirt from nature? One forensic anthropologist believes the clothes might have been removed from the scene and cleaned.
Why was Mitrice mummified and not totally decomposed if she had been exposed to the elements for 11 months?
What caused her left arm to be flexed? Could she have been tied up while mummification occurred?
When the animal theory didn't pan out, the LASD changed their statement, saying that her clothes were removed by running water. But for this to be possible, the creek would have needed to rise by 60 feet, and her body would have needed to float against the current.
Next came a series of infuriating mistakes from the coroner's office:
The coroner did not test hair found on the ground and compare it to Mitrice's hair to see if someone else was present. The earring was never tested. Bug casings on Mitrice's body were never tested. Dirt and leaves from the scene were never tested.
No craniotomy was performed to identify potential blunt force trauma. It took weeks to find Mitrice's clothes at the coroner's office; they were shoved into the bottom of a bag. Mitrice's pubic hair and clothes were not tested for semen, fibers, or hair.
Altogether, the LASD only searched the scene twice: once when Mitrice's body was found, and again 6 months later. Some of her remains are still missing. Her teeth were slightly pink, indicating strangulation, but no determination can be made without the missing hyoid bone from her neck.
So what happened to Mitrice?
(1) She was experiencing some sort of psychosis or manic episode, whether from bipolar, schizophrenia, or another mental illness. Because of this, she was able to get to the specific area of the canyon, remove her clothing, and succumbed to the elements. The LASD, though sketchy, did not play a role in her death. They just didn't care that much about a black woman in a predominantly white area.
(2) Mitrice was going through some sort of mental health crisis. Officers of the LASD believed that they could take advantage of her in some way, probably sexually. After she was released, the LASD contributed to her getting to Monte Nido and then to her death. They cleaned up and either hid the body, or dumped it but led others away from the area, then continually prevented the investigation from proceeding.
(3) Some third party (another person, a group of people) contributed to Mitrice's death. Because of LE's clear negligence, and Mitrice's mental illness, no third party was ever searched for.
I personally believe that the LASD did have a hand in Mitrice's death. I believe that one, or multiple, officers offered her a ride. I believe that she was sexually assaulted. But I'm unclear if, after this, LE killed her or she wandered off on her own, where she died. What are your thoughts? Curious to see what everyone else thinks.
Additional Articles: LA Mag & Wikipedia

worldnews

• We-can-fix-it

The European Union has fined two pharmaceutical companies for colluding to keep a cheap alternative to a sleep disorder medicine off the market for their profit and at the expense of patients.
Comments || Link

• angilinwago4

Chinese doctors jailed for organ harvesting
Comments || Link

• Moonlight102

Rapists will be chemically castrated in Pakistan under new laws approved by Prime Minister Imran Khan
Comments || Link

news

• ChiGuy6124

Venezuela judge convicts 6 American oil execs, orders prison
Comments || Link

• zanman28

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon tests positive for COVID-19
Comments || Link

• Marshall221

First Latino DACA recipient receives Rhodes Scholarship
Comments || Link

science

• smurfyjenkins

In the US, states typically pay for prison while counties determine sentencing. A natural experiment whereby the cost burden of juvenile incarceration was placed on counties led to a stark drop in incarceration. This suggests that mass incarceration in the US is in part due to misaligned incentives.
Comments || Link

• mvea

As interactions increasingly take place online, people find information that confirms their existing beliefs, making them less willing to listen to alternatives. This exacerbates filter bubbles and explains why public debates become polarized as people become impervious to opposing arguments.
Comments || Link

• mvea

People’s moral foundations can predict their compliance with staying at home, wearing masks, and social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Caring and fairness are morals that predict compliance with all three public health measures.
Comments || Link

space

• Gari_305

Space travel is bad for the body at a cellular level
Comments || Link

• fchung

How six scientists survived ‘living on Mars’ for a year: « The habitat had a small living room, 1.5 bathrooms, a galley kitchen and tiny living quarters for each of the six up a flight of stairs. Power came via solar panel, water via large storage tanks outside. »
Comments || Link

• malcolm58

China’s plan for moon research station gets closer with Chang’e-5 success
Comments || Link

Futurology

• altmorty

World’s Biggest Wind Park to Be Built Offshore U.K.
Comments || Link

• MichaelTen

Japan Developing Laser Weapons That Can Be Mounted On Vehicles To Counter Drone Attacks
Comments || Link

• pairagraph_team

History records many secular and religious attempts to build paradise on Earth. They haven’t worked. Nevertheless, some philosophers believe a biohappiness revolution is imminent, insisting: 'This time really is different'.
Comments || Link

AskReddit

• Merlijn-69

What are underrated websites and what do you use them for?
Comments || Link

• chiffonation

What do you think is the biggest secret being kept from mankind?
Comments || Link

• TheLordOfTheSkys

People who wear shoes in the house, why?
Comments || Link

todayilearned

• mvpetri

TIL that strings and cables moving randomly will spontaneously knot themselves with a probability reaching 100%
Comments || Link

• 1FuzzyPickle

TIL when Audrey Geisel, the widow of Doctor Seuss, was selling the rights to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, she made sure that "any actor submitted for the Grinch must be of comparable stature to Jack Nicholson, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman."
Comments || Link)

• BasementDweller3000

TIL PCs in the 80s and 90s often had a “Turbo” button which when pressed would counterintuitively slow down the processor speed to allow compatibility with older games designed for slower processors.
Comments || Link

dataisbeautiful

• divineartist

[OC] Effective cost of the different ways of getting Reddit Premium
Comments || Link

• DrPavel_Im_CIA

[OC] When does the sun set in Europe's capitals during the winter solstice (21/12)?
Comments || Link

• Really_Schruted_It

If COVID-19 Cases were Electoral Votes in the 2020 US Election [OC]
Comments || Link

Cooking

• CantThinkOfAName000

PSA: If you're spending Thanksgiving alone, there's now nothing stopping you from just drinking gravy straight. You're welcome.
Comments || Link

• grumblebeardo13

It worked!
Comments || Link

• footleatherfist

My deviled eggs were a hit!
Comments || Link

food

• UnOriginal-UserNames

[Homemade] Applewood smoked turkey.
Comments || Link

• allthebrisket

[Homemade] Double cheese burger on a potato bun
Comments || Link

• MhnkCSGO

[Homemade] Hand Laminated Pain Au Chocolat.
Comments || Link

movies

• koavf

Why ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ Is the Ultimate Thanksgiving Movie
Comments || Link

• Sisiwakanamaru

Casino Royale’s poker scene was as elaborate as a James Bond stunt
Comments || Link

• rageofthegods

Alex Garland Has A "Low Budget Horror Movie" Coming Up - Casting and financing on the project is currently underway, with a view to shoot in spring or summer 2021
Comments || Link

Art

• AndreMuller-art

Foot Stabber, Me, Digital, 2020
Comments || Link

• CaptainPeru

"I can only draw stick figures", me, digital painting, 2020
Comments || Link

• WitnessMe

Minotaur, Paul Reid, Oil on Canvas, 2020
Comments || Link

television

• WuzzWuzz

Kaley Cuoco on why she returned to TV so quickly with the Flight Attendant: 'You can easily be forgotten'
Comments || Link

• Sumit316

'Jeopardy!' Shares Alex Trebek's Posthumous Thanksgiving Message
Comments || Link

• AshIsGroovy

Saturday Morning Cartoons are coming to MeTV starting January 2
Comments || Link

pics

• Kiz-Fil-A

What started as an accidental text turned into an annual tradition!
Comments || Link

• hbgbees

My neighbors brought me a "plate" since I didn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving.
Comments || Link

• NewCarthagea

The Empire State Building seen from New Jersey, when it was first completed in the 1930s
Comments || Link

gifs

• redcobra762

Eyeball fun
Comments || Link

• JoeProHero7

Tubular
Comments || Link

• MrBrianWeldon

How Amazon ships your items.
Comments || Link

educationalgifs

• aloofloofah

How to calculate gear ratio
Comments || Link

mildlyinteresting

• mossydeerbones

I got my huge pet snail a small pet snail
Comments || Link

• crinklybrambles

Plate broke in weird satisfying shape
Comments || Link

• maz_menty

In 1993 I received my first federal tax refund. It was $1.00.
Comments || Link

interestingasfuck

• meepfest

Best wildlife photo of the year 2019
Comments || Link

• dubhead_dena

The birds of the striped cuckoo are very similar to pine cones. This is how they protect themselves from predators.
Comments || Link

• kreeball

My buddy caught an albino catfish yesterday. One in a million chance.
Comments || Link

funny

• theyoyoha

the ivory gap
Comments || Link

• Just-Stitious

Famous mac and cheese recipe. Don’t tell anyone but the secret ingredient is love!
Comments || Link

• Sclerodermasucks17

NO such thing as bad publicity. Wally’s Pub here on the NH seacoast, brilliantly seeing to it.
Comments || Link

aww

• macthesnackattack

I couldn’t see my family this year (for obvious reasons) so me and my boy made the best of it.
Comments || Link

• unnaturalorder

Golden pupper turns into a leaf sweeper when he's happy
Comments || Link

• Popular-Profile

A happy pygmy falcon
Comments || Link

Random Subreddit of the day: Borat

These are its 3 top posts of all time:

• frogcatcher52

Did haters of the sequel even watch the original?
Comments || Link

• skolnaja

Jeanise Jones (The babysitter) statement about the Borat 2 movie.
Comments || Link

• Potato_123_Tomato

Wawaweewa
Comments || Link

What really happened to Mitrice Richardson the night she disappeared?
In the early morning hours of September 17th, 2009, a beautiful young woman named Mitrice Richardson was released into the night from police custody without a phone, or any way to get home. Her body was found almost a year later. The mysterious circumstances surrounding her death remain unsolved.
On the evening of September 16, 2009, The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department from the Malibu/Lost Hills Station received a call from the affluent, upscale restaurant of Geoffrey’s, with the employees of the establishment claiming a woman was acting erratically, bizarre, and was refusing to pay her bill.
Beginning otherwise as a typical Southern Los Angeles Wednesday afternoon, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson graduate of Cal State Fullerton, who normally had dinner with her great grandmother on Wednesdays, decides to switch course. Feeling compelled to embrace the cool breeze of the ocean on her skin, she heads to Malibu and begins her 40-mile trek along the Pacific Coast highway.
As Mitrice ventures into the outskirts of Malibu, just as the sun begins to set, she is captivated by the luminescent beams of lights beating off the golden sign of Geoffrey’s and makes the decision to pull into the restaurant, a pivotal decision that would change the lives of many as they knew it.
Mitrice pulls into the parking lot of Geoffrey’s and is greeted by the Valet. He quickly lets her know it is valet parking only and rushes off to park another guest’s vehicle. When he returns he finds Mitrice no longer in her vehicle, but in his vehicle rummaging through his CDs and speaking in broken sentences. Startled and frazzled the Valet asks what Mitrice is doing in his vehicle and she responds “I’m here to avenge Michael Jackson's death”. The Valet removes Mitrice from his vehicle and ushers her in the direction of the restaurant.
The unusual behavior of Mitrice doesn’t end there. Mitrice orders a $65 steak and cocktail and notices a lively bunch enjoying their meal a few tables over, with a smile never leaving her face, she asks to join them. The group is intrigued by Mitrice’s abnormal behavior but welcomes her to their table. Mitrice goes on to talk about how she is from Mars, her mother was mother earth, and the ocean was calling her. Once the group settles their bill and exits the restaurant, Mitrice attempts to follow but is stopped by the manager as she has did not pay for her bill. Not appearing hostile or angry, the manager asks if there is anyone they can call to pay the bill for her after she claimed she didn't have any money.
At approximately 9:30 pm, 91-year-old Mildred Harris, Mitrice’s great-grandmother, receives a phone call from Geoffrey’s. She attempts to give her credit card information over the phone to settle the bill, but they could not accept it without a signature. With no way to pay her bill, the employees of Geoffrey’s contacted the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department about Mitrice.
60 miles away in Eastern Los Angeles, Mitrice’s mother, Latice, is made aware of the unusual situation occurring at that very moment. She calls Geoffrey’s directly and finds out Mitrice has just been taken into custody by the officers. They go on to tell her about the behavior Mitrice had displayed, and that Mitrice’s vehicle was about to towed to a location very close to the restaurant, but far from the Lost Hills Station where the police had taken Mitrice. Feeling helpless, and unsure what to do, Latice calls the Lost Hills station and confirms with the deputy a woman is en route to the station from Geoffrey’s. Unable to pick up her daughter from the station, Latice is worried about Mitrice’s well-being and doesn’t want her released in the middle of the night without a phone or vehicle. The Deputy assures Latice that she will be contacted once Mitrice arrives at the station, but that call never came.
As soon as Latice wakes up the following morning she calls the Lost Hills station hoping to figure out how to get Mitrice home. She is told that Mitrice was released 5 hours earlier at about 12:30 am. They claimed they had no reason to hold her because she had no criminal record and was not exhibiting signs of mental incapacitation, despite her unusual behavior. Mitrice was released into the dark gloomy night without any form of communication, transportation, or assistance from officers. According to Steven Whitmore of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, officers said, “You can stay here if you wish. You can stay in a cell, but you can stay here, but she declined that offer”.
Panic begins to set in as Latice becomes aware Mitrice has not spoken to anyone since being released from the station, and she realized the moment she had feared the most was here. Immediately sensing something was not right, Latice calls back the Sheriff’s Office and asks how long she would have to wait to file a missing person’s report. The Deputy, seeing Mitrice was released just hours ago, encourages her to wait 24 hours before reporting her missing. With nothing left to do but wait, Latice questions how Mitrice could have possibly been released without a mental evaluation?
At about 6:30 AM that Thursday morning, The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department receives a call from a Monte Nido community resident, located about 7 miles from the station. The resident, a former news anchor, reported a young, strange woman was in his backyard. When asked if she was okay, she responded that she was just “resting.” Once he called the police, she was gone. It was later confirmed that young woman was Mitrice Richardson by cadaver dogs that were able to catch her scent in his backyard.
But how did Mitrice get 7 miles away without her vehicle?
Monte Nido is a vast landscape of mountains and terrain, a location that would be difficult to navigate for a non-local, especially in the dark hours of the night. According to Mitrice’s family members, Mitrice was known to be afraid of the dark.
On September 18th, Mitrice’s family members gather together to discuss Mitrice's bizarre behavior in the days leading up to her disappearance. They begin to see the warning signs that something with Mitrice was not right. Mitrice had been sending erratic text messages, that did not make sense, almost gibberish. The day before she disappeared she visited her aunt’s house and left business cards from her go-go dancing job scattered everywhere. The strangest occurrence being an unusual note left on Latices husband windshield with “black women scorned” written across it, a smiley face, and had been signed off with a kiss.
In the days before Mitrice disappeared, she was posting unusual things on Facebook, and Myspace. Posting at all hours of the night, investigators were unable to understand when she slept. A psychologist that works with the LAPD assessed Mitrice was exhibiting signs of a mental health condition, possibly bipolar disorder.
During the subsequent investigation, the family of Mitrice is made aware they found money and her wallet inside her car, with officers somehow overlooking it the night she was arrested.
Days pass with unanswered questions, repeated attempts to get Mitrice’s police report are overlooked. Mitrice’s family attempts to access police footage of Mitrice at the station that night, but their request is denied. LAPD cited “they need to follow proper protocol in order to release information to the family,” and they had no footage to even give to Mitrice’s family.
Feeling like their pleas to police were going unanswered. The family of Mitrice hired civil rights lawyer, Leo J. Terrell, who assembles a press conference gathered in front of the Lost Hills Station on Thursday, September 24th, 2009, demanding action of the Police Department. Terrell said at the press conference “If Mitrices name was Spears or Lohan, they would have never let her walkout by herself. They would have escorted her home.”
Months later, as the New year quickly rang in, tensions between Mitrice’s Family and the Los Angeles Police Department continue to grow, a meeting is called between the Sheriff and Captain of Lost Hills. Things quickly take a turn when it comes to light the Police Department did indeed have footage of Mitrice the night she was arrested. They claimed they misunderstood, thinking Mitrice’s family was asking for footage of Mitrice outside the station not a video of Mitrice in the station.
On January 9th, 2010 the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department organized one of the largest searches in the history of LAPD. An 18 square mile search in Malibu Canyon with over 300 trained volunteers participating in air and ground searches. Mitrice was still not found.
Just 3 weeks later, and almost 300 miles away in Las Vegas, Mitrice’s Father, Michael Richardson, alerts authorities that he believes he saw his daughter Mitrice in an area known for prostitution on the Las Vegas Strip. Michael called out to Mitrice but lost her in the crowd. Latice firmly believes that wasn’t her daughter and believes she never made it out of Malibu Canyon.
On June 26th, 2010, Latice and her lawyer file 6 lawsuits against the LA County Sheriff’s Department for negligence and wrongful death. Around the same time, there is another sighting of Mitrice, by a high school friend. At around 3 AM, in a Las Vegas casino, he claimed to have seen Mitrice. He called out to her, but the woman appeared nervous and ran off.
On August 9th, 2010 Malibu State Park Rangers are hiking along the area of Dark Canyon, a vastly remote area, just a few miles from where Mitrice was last seen, searching for any illegal marijuana growing in the area. This area is said to be a very difficult place to stumble upon and very hard to get through. Upon their quest, they discover the mummified naked remains of an African American curly haired woman. Ignoring the proper protocol, the woman was airlifted out of Dark Canyon. The woman was later confirmed to be Mitrice Richardson. A ranch known for producing pornography was adjacent to where Mitrice was found, but no connection has been determined.
Multiple residents in the area reported to have heard screams in the area several nights after Mitrice disappeared, but despite this, Mitrice’s death was deemed not to be a homicide, and no foul play occurred. The cause of death was ruled to be undetermined.
What happened to this beautiful, intellectual, talented woman? Why would police let her go in the middle of the night with no phone or vehicle? Why was she acting so strangely? How did Mitrice end up dead in that creek bed? Too many unanswered questions have consumed the Richardson Family. We need to find out what exactly happened to Mitrice Richardson.
More info:
https://www.murdersandcoffee.com/post/what-happened-to-mitrice-richardson
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-17/mitrice-richardson-reward-malibu
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/sheriff-updates-mitrice-richardson-disappearance-decade-late1965858/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Mitrice_Richardson
What do y’all think happened to Mitrice? Do you think she succumbed to the elements? Or something sinister occurred to her that night? Share your thoughts!
I also wanna add her clothes were found scattered around her body. It would be unusual for her to undress and try to maneuver through that creek bed.

The groundwork is now in play for us to develop a S. American Solution to space habitation. Doing so will require 3 projects in order to fully achieve a "sprint" at temporary dominance in space before N. American systems come online that must be compensated for. Achieving this has brought 3 distinct designs to be rapidly put into play following opening operations by the HX launch center in Venezuela.

La Paz Station (LEO [500-800km])

La Paz is being considered as a logical first step to S. American space exploitation as Skylab was to the moon landing. La Paz station has been designed as a logistics base in order to facilitate several key goals seen as being necessary for inter-solar activities:

• spacecraft assembly
• orbital propellant depot
• asteroid ore refinery
• using asteroid ore to manufacture fuel and orbital construction materials to be sold in orbit
• refining platinum group metal bullion to be sold on Earth

To help facilitate these needs, the station's design is set to incorporate a number of features. These being a large pressurizable free-fall garage to act as a spacecraft servicing and assembly area (similar to a drydock in most regards) situated next to an anti-radiation storm cellar to help keep the onboard crew safe from solar flares, radiation storms, or potential degradation of radiation shielding all being housed within a stationary central "stator". Around the garage will sit many tanks designed for water-trimming, air and fuel storage, and emergency escape capsule containers. Extending from the "mouth" of the garage is planned a set of robotic manipulator arms to help with docking efforts, the capture of payload, or general maintenance.
Attached to the said stator is planned the habitation module of the station. Comprised of the centrifuge (designed to provide artificial gravity to the crew) it spans 100m with a spin of 3 RPMs used to simulate Earth-like gravity at 1 gee. This habitation module is counterweighted at the opposite end of the 100m length in order to provide stability to the station. To attach the centrifuge to the stator without causing unwanted friction a magnetic bearing is used. To help further provide stability to the station a long boom is planned (at the length of 350m) pointed directly down in order to tidally lock the station to Earth. To further alleviate stress on the station the centrifugal module is planned to stay in parallel to the station plane of orbit.
Transfer of crew from station to the centrifugal habitation module is planned to make use of an airlock "pod". Said pod, being a pressurized capsule with docking hatches on both ends and riding a rail, will start docked from the stator. Once crew moving from the stator (or calling from the hab) are safely inside, the capsule detaches from the stator (after locking hatches ofc) and moves towards the centrifuge along the rail whilst at the same time beginning a spin to match speed with the centrifuge. Once the pod has reached the centrifuge hub it will have matched the spin and can easily dock with the hub, opening its hatchway to allow the crew to enter or exit the pod.
On the lower end of the tidal boom, the entirety of which comprises most of the station's length is planned will sit the station's storage which will be used for both their intended purpose as well as acting as shielding for crew members against solar storms. Further up will sit a 4 solar panel arrays and a single array of radiators designed to provide the station with power and bleed off any unnecessary heat from the station. Being fully enclosed, this will allow for the crew to move around the stations lower length performing maintenance, scientific experiments at labs, component assembly, or utilizing onboard electric forges to process raw materials.
The upper end of the boom will mostly only consist of an open truss with enclosed sections of the stator only enclosing a portion of its length and a portion towards the end similarly enclosed. Movement between the two sections will be achieved via a rail system with an airlock present at both ends as well as the top of the boom. This will crew/payloads to be transferred up the length of the boom and deployed into higher orbits utilizing the station as a refueling/assembly point. Similarly, at the bottom of the boom is planned an airlock and a skyhook (of sorts). Whilst, not a true skyhook as to pluck craft from deep atmosphere and suffering from some of the same problems, it will allow craft/payloads arriving at the station to expend far lest propulsive mass in order to achieve orbit with the station. To compensate for the loss of momentum from such an act a series of ionic thrusters are planned at the bottom of the station to be used to help prevent the station from simply falling into the atmosphere (as well as such corrections not relating to a skyhook).
While the station's primary goal has it facilitating astroid mining, it runs into a rather paradoxical issue in that asteroid mining won't exist until such a facility is in place and a facility won't be in place unless there is asteroid mining in need of it. To help compensate for this, the station will primarily be used (in the first phase) to assemble, deploy, and maintain satellites and craft looking to leave earth orbit. Once asteroid mining as the industry comes into its own, then the station's functions will transfer over to material processing and shipping.
Altogether a total crew capacity of 20-30 is planned with options for later expansion of crew facilities.

Lima 1 (LEO[600 KM])

Lima Station is in of themself, designed to fully commercialize space the public and provide those willing and wanting to experience space as a luxury the chance to as well as provide ample room for scientific experimentation and development. Lima 1 is designed to incorporate four distinct elements into its construction the Gateway, the Central Port, The Inner Ring, and the Outer Ring. Each provides a certain function to Lima 1 and together form the next and first generation of S. American Space Habitation.
The Gateway is, in itself, to Lima 1 as a deck is to an aircraft carrier (but in a vacuum) and is designed to facilitate the transfer of shuttlecraft to and from the station. The Gateway holds an unpressurized volume greater than 270,000m3 with approximately 10 total airlock gates, 8 cargo airlocks, and 14 active bay pads (used to move shuttle craft around the Gateway). The bay will be the first constructed area of Lima 1 supporting and facilitating building the rest of the structure.
The next is the Central Port. The Central port is designed to be the business heart of Lima 1. It is here that Lima 1's administration, control room, storage, viewing areas, environmental processing, and Gateway will be located. Designed to house 50 crew with a width of 152m and depth of 76m the Central Port has a total pressurized volume greater than 1.1 million m3. Built second to the Gateway, this section will officially allow for economic/solar operations to begin on the station allowing our personnel to get a feel for the station and test the design before full operations and expansion go into effect.
The Inner Ring is designed to accommodate the first of those willing to take a vacation into space as well as allow our scientists access to microgravity experimentation. Producing 20% of earth gravity via centrifugal spin, the Inner ring the planned features will include such areas as a large open-air gymnasium, a Japanese style garden, a fabulous destination hotel, a food court with restaurants, a band stage for concerts, and a casino. However, this won't just be an exercise in luxury as part of the garden will be situated for vertical farming in order to allow our scientists to better understand and design solutions around farming in micro-gravity. The hotel itself will feature several sound-proof hotel rooms allowing the best sleep in microgravity that can be achieved. Under the guest rooms, a series of hangers housing escape vehicles are planned to give guests to the station the best sense of security possible while enjoying their stay. While guests to the station might have a lot of fun playing around in the inner ring, areas will be designated to the sciences allowing our scientists and engineers to experience, plan, and test in micro-gravity on a scale not normally afforded to other scientific teams around the globe. The width of this disk is slatted at 304m with a depth of 76m which narrows to 45 m at the rim. Gross volume in the Ring is upwards of 3 million + m3 and planned guest rooms set to 300 with solar panel energy generation (along the outside of the ring) expected to achieve total energy output of 10.4 Mw.
The final part of this station will be the Outer ring. Connected via one of four connecting tunnels the outer ring will produce 30% of earth gravity with spacious accommodations for upwards of 1000 residents for lease/rent. With a width of 488m, depth of 45 m, and height of 30 m the total gross volute of this outer ring is slatted at 2.23 million + m3 with similar solar power generation techniques pulling in approx. 45.7 Mw of energy.
Building Lima 1 will happen in stages with the first 3 stages happening closer together with a final "proving" stage occurring 1 year after construction to nail down any issues that might arise before finally building the outer ring. During this time, occupancy of the Inner Ring will be kept to around 30% total occupancy and expanding to 100% after the proving stages are complete. After which a similar proving period will occur with the Outer Ring keeping occupancy to 30% before expanding that to 100%. Each station in of themselves, making use of industries and technologies either currently in development or having been developed within the last century, should be relative "cost-efficient" with a price tag for both coming in at $10 billion USD utilizing the HX launch system, taking into account cost for materials, and labor.
Implementation times are as follows (with material stockpiling and manufacturing occurring within the 2 years period that the HX system comes online after the design phase):
La Paz:

• Design Phase: 2 years
• Construction Phase: 2 years
• Full operations within 4 years

Lima 1:

• Design Phase 2 years
• Construction Phase 1: 2 years
• Proving Phase: 1 year
• Construction Phase 2: 1-1/2 years
• Proving Phase: 1 year
• Full operation in 7 1/2 years