The Vanishing Point: Episode 2, End of the Road

As we prepare for a new season of Up and Vanish this January, please check out The Vanishing Point, a new series from the Up and Vanish team. This podcast is absolutely free, but if you want to listen to it ad-free, subscribe to Tenderfootplus at tenderfootplus..com or on Apple Podcasts.

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I've learned a lot over the last seven years of looking into missing persons cases. And one of the biggest takeaways I have is to follow every lead. Because you truly never know what you're going to find. In episode one, our team spoke to the family of Emily Riesling, who disappeared. Now it's time for them to talk to other people who might have some insight into her disappearance.

She stayed with me for about six to eight months before she vanished, I guess, and we just became really good friends. She's gone through some stuff, but aren't we all?

In the weeks leading up to her disappearance, Emily was staying with her close friend. Tech West-McCovey Tech, who is also a member of the Hoopa Valley tribe, was the first person to realize that Emily was missing.

Can you walk us through the moment that you knew that Emily was missing?

It had been a couple days since I'd seen her. I usually am able to track her down, or whenever she'd just wander off or whatnot. And I finally asked one of my co-workers if they had seen her. They live towards the end of the road there, because the last place she was seen was down there.

Emily vanished in October of 2021.

Trees and a few houses and the river. It's kind of a really, really small place. The nearest store is like 30 miles from there. Everybody kind of lives up in the mountains or up the hill. But once you get to the end of the road, there's a church and a cemetery, right? When you get to the end of the road, it'll kind of go up the hill. And there'll be a straight house where that's where the Hunsuckers live.

I'm Slecia Stanton. This is the vanishing point.

A friend of Rizling's tech, West Mokoby, 42, has also been plagued by local whispers regarding Rizling's whereabouts. Rizling lived with Mokoby on and off in Hoopa for around eight months before she disappeared.

Everybody just kind of turned their back on her and she just wanted to be loved, you know? She just wanted to have somebody that's not going to judge her for the stuff that she was going through.

Like we talked about in episode one. After the birth of her daughter, Emily's life began to spiral out of control. She was grappling with the effects of postpartum psychosis, a severe mental illness that affects one in 500 mothers. Unable to access the resources she needed, Emily began self-medicating, and, as her friend Tech West remembers, Emily had begun surrounding herself with folks who hindered her chances of recovery.

When I had first met her, some people that she were hanging out with, I guess, had taken her car and all her belongings that she had. You know, were in there. And stuff and went and ditched it way out in the mountains somewhere. And so she never did get it back, so that was kind of a hard thing for her. Her daughter recently just gotten taken from her, she had just broken up with her baby's daddy.

We also heard this from Emily's mom, Judy. She felt that, in many ways, the domestic violence her daughter experienced set off a cascade of effects that isolated Emily.

She was just kind of lost, I mean, you know, she needed somebody, She just felt like she was alone in the world.

Tech says she wanted to make sure that Emily didn't feel alone during these hard times. But the reality was even though there were moments of clarity, Emily's mental illness continued to decline. It all led to mounting challenges.

She was in and out of trouble with the cops, or they were always kind of picking her up or just wouldn't ever take her in. Like, two times, I think they took her into a facility, she would just get right back out. But there was like several accounts of them just dropping her off at my house. Because they didn't really want to deal with her, you know, they were kind of tired of just having calls about her.

After being spotted on the bridge, days passed with no signs of Emily worried, Tech launched an exhaustive search for her missing friend. In Laura's article for the Two, River Tribune Tech spoke about her efforts.

McCovey has spent time talking to the locals in an area called the End of the Road, just past Pequon Bridge, where Riesling was allegedly last seen. McCovey believes the small group of people who live there know more than they're saying about Riesling's disappearance. The folks down at end of the road were all acting really weird after Riesling disappeared, McCovey said. She explained that she went down there to look for Riesling after she failed to return to McCovey's house.

At the end of the road, Tech quickly gathered accounts from residents, many of who say they saw Emily around the time of her disappearance. One resident's statement in particular, stood.

Out, one of the neighbor guys that lives down there, Frank, he comes over and talks.

To me, the end of the road is a small community, and Frank is one of its few residents. Tech, who spoke with Frank periodically about Emily's disappearance, says he initially denied even knowing Emily. It was an admission she found strange because Emily had dated Frank's son for quite some time. But then his story changed.

He's telling me that Emily has walked down to the River bar and is going to go float down to Appa Village.

Appa is a small village located next to the Klamath River, a place the locals have deemed a spiritual ground. Its isolation means the only way to get there is by boat or river float.

I was like, Well, that's not good, because, you know, she would do that. She was always at the river, like when she'd be upset, she'd just go down there and holler around. That's where she would go when she needed to get a reset. Or, like, some kind of clarity.

Have you spoken to Frank lately?

Not like recently, I mean, I've seen him, you know, periodically here and there and stuff, and it's kind of weird. Because as soon as I said that, you know, you might want to talk to him about Emily, he just starts crying and starts talking to these. I don't know. He said that her spirit had visited him in jail while he was in there. And just a bunch of other things, like, didn't make no sense to me, but he just really, gets really emotional about it.

According to Tech, getting a straight answer was hard, but she kept following every lead.

Next thing I heard, you know, somebody sighted her down in Klamath, I was like, that's kind of crazy for her. To be able to make it from Point A to Point B within just less than a day. You know, walking, especially barefoot with no apparel on. So, anyway, I ripped over to Klamath and investigated all around there. You know, talked to people that I could and asked if they'd seen her, and it turned out it wasn't her.

Do you think there's foul play involved in Emily's disappearance?

I don't know, there's like several different things.

What purse belongings did you find in the road?

Well, it wasn't too much. There was just like little little things of makeup, they were all smashed and like, ran over and stuff. I knew it was her, her purse, belongings, because there was an itinerary for my uncle's funeral that she always packed around with her.

Do you think somebody knows?

I think, yeah, definitely, somebody knows something more than they're saying, you know?

Do you think more than one person?

Yeah, I do.

Hi, my name is Greg O'Rourke.

As a Yurok citizen with 23 years of law enforcement experience, Chief O'Rourke has deep ties to his community. And while tribal police functions vary nationwide, Chief O'Rourke's force is cross-deputized with Humboldt County. This means that in addition to enforcing tribal law, Yurok police may also enforce state law. So it sounds like you being native helps build trust with the family.

Yes, I'm not just a native police officer, but a person who's grown up, you know, being part of our culture and then moving into law enforcement. One of those unofficial roles that I kind of took upon myself was to be that liaison between our native communities and law enforcement. And so, based off of my own experiences, there's times that I will get cooperation from somebody by the nature of who I am. And that community is not going to give that same level of cooperation or trust to a deputy, you know, who's non-native.

As we mentioned in episode one, shortly before her disappearance, Emily was arrested for starting a small fire in a local cemetery.

They knew where she was, they were hopeful that she would get clean, get fed, and then have potential resources to help her. But from a criminal justice standpoint, Emily didn't need jail.

She was going through crisis. Chief O'Rourke expressed concern about the limited number of mental health resources available to the community. In fact, the only mental health hospital in the region is an hour away. But even if you can get there, getting in is its own challenge. The facility has only 16 beds available.

I didn't have the resources or the capacity to be able to conduct both the investigative portion of it and the search and rescue portion of it. I elected to go with investigation and put my resources there to be able to try to track down leads. And unfortunately, that left the search and rescue portion on the reservation or the area that she was last seen unfulfilled. I can confirm that the last place that she was seen, that we can cooperate was on Pequan Bridge. And it was a Monday, and I believe it was October 13th.

Chief O'Rourke told us that clothes had been recovered in the area. But with the rainy weather they had had at the time of Emily's disappearance, forensic teams couldn't obtain the biological evidence needed to definitively prove the clothing was hers. With few leads.

Remaining the case went cold. The family and the community are result-oriented when it comes to a missing person. For law enforcement. We have to be evidence-oriented and so we have to be able to conduct the search and the investigation with the potential of prosecution afterwards. And that's oftentimes in direct conflict with what the family's looking for.

The same goal sharing information. According to O'Rourke, the investigation is still ongoing.

We still try to follow any lead that could potentially open this up. What I can say is there is no indication of foul play. But we also have to consider the strong possibility that she drowned in the river, and without any indicator of foul play, then the likelihood of that possibility.

Becomes stronger.

Will never be able to confirm that, I don't want to say never. You know, there is a possibility that remains. You know, go on to the ocean and then hit that current, that North current, and potentially up around Oregon. You know, that's definitely possible. But I pull a lot of bodies out of the Trinity River.

The rumors about the last place Emily Risling was seen seem never-ending.

The last confirmed sighting of risling was on Highway 169 on Pequin Bridge.

She disappeared in a place with a lot of known convicts. Frank, he lives in the right when you get to the end of the road.

When you see the end of the road, it's going to make you scared.

Well, I mean, as pretty as the Trinity is, and as the Klamath is, it's, you know, it's water. Water is a very, very powerful thing. The river is very powerful, and with the rocky river bottom and the wooded terrain, there's a lot of strainers.

If you're unfamiliar with river strainers, think of them as a snag in a river's flow, like a fallen tree or clump of debris. River water and small objects will tend to filter through, but large items they'll clutter in the snag, creating a perilous trap.

And people end up getting a foot entrapment or get caught up in a strainer. And if you don't respect that river, it will take you.

Our team ventures deeper into the woods, the distance between houses growing as the minutes pass. Do people live out here?

Oh yeah, absolutely. It's a small community. And in regards to Emily, I think oftentimes people in the Downriver community kind of get a little bit offended at some of the implications that's been going around of people. Downriver, you know, hiding in the lane.

How in the world did Emily get here?

Probably hitchhiked or walked.

Would that be common to walk this?

Yeah, actually, it is. You wouldn't think it, but you know, quite a few people will still walk the roads.

So is there any idea what Emily would have been walking or hitchhiking down here for?

I don't know, and we haven't been able to kind of uncover that. What we do know, though, based off of her prior behavior, is that she would often camp out on the river bar as part of her transient lifestyle.

Just then, Chico Rourke pulls to a stop.

Pequan Bridge.

Pequan Bridge.

Pequan Bridge is a stretch of steel connecting one side of the valley to the other. Against one of the railings, a weather-beaten flyer clings to the metal. It's a Missing Persons poster. Emily, her hair choppy brown, smiles up from the paper in bold print. It lists a $20,000 reward for information on her disappearance.

So this is the bridge that we can confirm where she's at, standing below the bridge naked.

And who's the person that can place her on the bridge?

The school bus, the whole bus, the whole bus, saw her standing here, standing on the bridge.

The middle of the bridge, the side of the bridge.

On the side of the bridge.

Must have been cold.

Yeah, yep.

The Trinity River meets the Klamath River under Pequan Bridge, a dividing point between what feels like two worlds. On the Trinity side. The water looks shallow and rocky, The Klamath, on the other hand, is dark and murky. You cannot see the bottom and it flows much faster. The unsettling truth is that on this side of the bridge, there's no way to tell if anything might be stuck under the rushing current.

So this is a pretty high flow right here. So, you know, there's a lot of water coming down, it's coming down fast. And you can see just, you know, like those willows and the trees just kind of hanging down. If you get caught up in that and the weight of the water is pushing on you. Especially with this type of, you know, strength. I mean, if you can't bench 300 pounds, you're not going to be able to push yourself off against your strength.

Yeah, this looks pretty powerful.

It is powerful.

Could someone get swept away in this?

Oh, easily, very easily.

Someone else says, Maybe she floated downriver. What does that mean?

So I mean, if I'm up in, you know, around there, you know, float downriver to get here.

What would people float on?

Inner tube freaking board.

In October.

Well, yeah, gold wouldn't be smart, but possible, you know, hypothermia would set in pretty quickly. I mean, the odds are, you know, she didn't do that.

But.

No, not on the bridge, you know? A couple statements from the community, people is that she was going to go down to a village further down.river, you know, by river. She was very adamant about that.

Do you know how long after she was spotted on the bridge, your officer was able to respond?

The next day, so it was on a Monday, and so the next two days he was down in this area looking for her.

Our team sets course for the end of the road, but before they leave, something on the bridge catches their attention. All right, guys, ready. Greg, did you see this graffiti on the bridge? Written on the bridge are messages.

Isn't that a tribute to her?

Did you see this one? Oh, I think this one, says Emily.

What's it say?

That bitch you'll always miss.

Just 30 minutes down road, the blacktop abruptly ends.

So now we're at the end of the road, so you talk about, you know, the paved road, see, it just goes right into a driveway. And so this is one of the houses that Emily was, you know, reported to have stayed at. The people that live here came across her naked and brought her in and gave her clothes and food.

And what facility is this right here?

This is the firehouse, the Yurok Tribes firehouse, and this is where we had our operational center for the search.

Chief O'Rourke is referring to the search that was funded by the John Francis Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to wilderness safety, education and search and rescue operations. After months without answers, the John Francis Foundation stepped in and offered their services to the risling family. During that search, cadaver dogs hit on decomposition in an area where someone had died from an accident years back. But there were no other hits for Emily.

Hey.

There were a lot of rumors swirling around about Emily's disappearance, and with his inconsistent statements, Frank was at the center of many of them. What did he really know about Emily's disappearance? If anything at all, that answer needed to come from him next time on the vanishing point.

There's a lot of stories of connection with the illegal marijuana industry. That was for years, people would go missing, and that was almost an accepted fact.

I've heard a lot of things about my mom's disappearance and everything has ended with murder, and those stories are hard to hear. And what's even more crazy is that person, whoever did it is probably someone we know, we all know here and they're just walking around.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Vanishing Point. This six-part series is released weekly absolutely free, but if you want to listen to it ad-free, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at Tenderfootplus..com or on Apple Podcasts.

We'll see you next time.