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The Disappearance Of Deanne Hastings
21 Plays23 days ago
Deanne Hastings grew up in isolation in rural Nevada before moving to Spokane, where her life shifted after her parents’ divorce and the emergence of bipolar disorder. Despite the challenges, she fought to rebuild, becoming a devoted mother and starting over with new relationships and goals. In November 2015, after a day filled with promise and a fresh start at cosmetology school, she disappeared without a trace. Her final hours were marked by strange behavior, claims of being drugged, and unsettling encounters that only deepened the mystery. Deanne was never seen again, and the truth of what happened that night remains unknown.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Beneath the Evergreens'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances to true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens. Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night.
00:00:28
Speaker
So grab your flashlight. lock your doors and join us beneath the evergreens.
Reflecting on Episode 29
00:00:55
Speaker
Okay, well we are on episode 29. Can you believe it? I cannot. Oh my gosh. I feel like I say that every single time, but truly it does not feel like we've been doing this for 29 weeks now.
00:01:05
Speaker
It doesn't feel like that. And I thought I would be bored by like week 15 and I would just give it up, but I'm like more invested now than ever. Same. I feel like this is a huge commitment for both of us, and I'm very impressed that we both stuck around. I know. Particularly this weekend, I'm super impressed with your commitment.
00:01:23
Speaker
I was thinking we were just going to pull from the archives, but no. Anna's a busy woman, and you know what? We make time for this shit. Absolutely. I'm impressed. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm ah sitting on the floor right now, mic next to me. um If you hear me w rustling around, it's because my legs are falling asleep, so apologies, friends.
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, I pulled a particular story for you because I know you're in this general area. Ooh. And so I thought you'd be intrigued because you might go by some of these places.
00:01:54
Speaker
I'm very excited. Unless you scare me and I can't sleep tonight, then and i hate you and we're no longer friends. um You tell me at the end of this, if we're still friends or not. I'm going to have to make a new podcast if we're not.
Deanne Hastings' Early Life
00:02:10
Speaker
So for this one, we're going to talk about a missing person case out of Spokane, Washington. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yes. So I'm going to take us back to the early days, early, early ah late eighty s so I'm going to say like 1984. Okay.
00:02:29
Speaker
okay Where Deanne Hastings grew up in a small town in Nevada. Okay. but Today we're talking about Deanne Hastings, if you didn't get that the sentence I just said.
00:02:45
Speaker
You're killing hitters here at Beneath the Evergreens. My brain is mush, just so everyone knows, so apologies in advance. But when I say small town, I mean real small town in Nevada. Like her closest neighbor was five miles away.
00:03:00
Speaker
Oh my God, wow. So friends, few and far between. But she did have a sibling, her brother, who was a little bit older, and they became each other's best friends.
00:03:12
Speaker
They were pretty much inseparable. Um... They loved each other. They always were outside catching lizards, playing with sticks. And by all accounts, the family themselves were extremely close. Like they did everything together. We're talking picnics in the woods. We're talking excursions on the weekends. Like they're very close knit family.
00:03:34
Speaker
And part of that is because of the small town vibes, but also they just really loved each other. Mm-hmm. But then in fourth grade, the family moves to a Spokane for a job opportunities for her parents.
00:03:46
Speaker
And at first her parents thought, you know, this is going to be rough for the kids. This is a big move. Nevada to Washington. That's a big trek. It's completely different.
00:03:58
Speaker
Well, actually for Deanne, the transition was super easy. Deanne was a super bubbly person who drew people to her. And by all accounts, she treated this as a new adventure and an opportunity to make new friends. And she was just thriving in this new environment. She really embraced it. And until 1996, she, by all accounts, was super happy, was someone that people just loved and and were really drawn to.
00:04:25
Speaker
But In 1996, a couple of things happened that really affected Deanne. One of them is that her parents ended up getting divorced.
00:04:36
Speaker
And as I alluded to earlier, this was a very close knit family. They were always together. They were always doing stuff. So this came particularly hard to Deanne, who was like, what the we're like, what are you talking about? You guys are getting divorced. That doesn't make sense.
00:04:52
Speaker
And then not only that, shortly after her parents announced that they're getting divorced, her father moves out and then her brother joins the military. Oh my gosh. So it's like back to back. She has two ah very important people in her life kind of just disappear. Her dad was still in the picture, but he moved out. So, you know, you're not in the home with them. And then her brother, when he joined the military, got sent to boot camp in Texas and that's where he was stationed. So again, that's quite a bit of ways away.
00:05:22
Speaker
Well, when this happened, her mom started to notice that Deanne started going into
Struggles with Mental Health
00:05:29
Speaker
herself. She wasn't necessarily this vivacious, bubbly person that she once was. She started just being very depressed. She was very sad. And she would start to have these episodes that were a little out of character for her.
00:05:41
Speaker
oh And she thought her mom first that thought it was just her hormones. She's a teenager. There's a lot of trials and tribulations. Yeah. she's She's just thinking it's a teenage thing.
00:05:52
Speaker
She'll grow out of it. But then by the time she was 17, these mood swings became very aggressive. Like they even called like these little episodes where she would have these huge downward spirals where she'd be vicious. Like,
00:06:10
Speaker
verbally assaulting people oh my god attacking their insecurities but then she would come out of it and be like super embarrassed and like oh i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and they again were trying to kind of attributing this to mood swings of a teenager because let's be honest teenagers can be brutal absolutely yeah every time i think of teenagers that my chemical role is it my chemical romance that teenagers scare the living shit out of me yes that That song comes in my head every time I see teenagers walking down the street. Absolutely.
00:06:43
Speaker
So I get it. I get why they're thinking this is hormones. um And then one day when Deanne was 17, she shows up at our mom's work on lunch.
00:06:55
Speaker
Her mom's really excited. there She's thinking they're going to have you know a great lunch together. And she kind of drops a bomb that she was pregnant. Oh, my gosh. And while she's pregnant, these episodes kind of stabilize a little bit.
00:07:09
Speaker
Okay. Then she has her son in 1998. she's just She's just turning 18. And after she has her son, by all accounts, these kind of episodes stabilize a little bit.
00:07:22
Speaker
Okay. And Deanne moves in with her high school boyfriend and with her new baby. Is he the father of of the kid? Okay. She moves in with the baby daddy and they kind of start a life together. Deanne during this time was super like one of those moms that's not necessarily a helicopter mom, but just loved her kids so much. She would do anything for them. And she's just always around, always building that relationship for her son.
00:07:50
Speaker
um But as the years move on, the relationship with the boyfriend doesn't, isn't as healthy as one would want. And a lot of this is being contributed to Deanne starting to have these mood swings again. these episodes, if you will.
00:08:07
Speaker
Interesting. So, and it is like, it almost sounds hormonal, like not to blame hormones for everything that's going on in a woman's life. But like when you're saying like when she's a teenager, it's pretty, it's pretty high. And then when she's pregnant, it stabilizes like your hormones are doing crazy shit when you're pregnant.
00:08:24
Speaker
It's like that kind of tracks in a way. I wonder how much of, yeah, Deanne's story. is hormonal, but then we'll see later that she was diagnosed with a mental disorder, but I'll get to that in a second. But essentially the couple decided to split because there's just too much volatility in the home and they don't want to raise their child and in in this environment. So she, Deanne moves back in with her mom and she's devastated by all.
00:08:49
Speaker
And then this is where the episodes that they thought were hormonal, hormonal take an even bigger dip. Oh no. She's bedridden for weeks at a time.
00:09:01
Speaker
um Then she comes out of it and she will just disappear for days on end. She'll text people here and there, but she's like gone. Then she'll come back and she'll be super and violent super violent, super intense. And that is when her mom's like, okay, this isn't just hormones. This isn't just X, y and Z. Let's seek some help. So this is when she, Deanne, is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
00:09:29
Speaker
Gotcha. That makes sense. And so at this time, she's still trying to care for her son, but during these manic episodes, she can't be left alone. She's kind of all over the place. She's...
00:09:42
Speaker
you know, not making the best decisions, which I totally understand when you're, you know, in in a bad mental state, you can't always yeah be the best person you want to be. And so it was at this time where her son's father, who's a great parent, by the way, decided that, Hey, how about I take full custody of the kid of our kid and you move to Texas with your brother You go back to school, you finish your nursing school that you started and just have a fresh start in Texas.
A New Beginning in Texas
00:10:14
Speaker
And so that's what the family decides. She moves to Texas, she finishes nursing school and she starts doing really well. Like kid it's like a new, a new life has started for her. And then she meets someone in the military that, you know, her brother knows they fall in love very quickly. They move in together, they get married and then they have two children together.
00:10:34
Speaker
Okay. A couple years after they get together and after she has her babies, unfortunately, she starts to have these episodes again. oh no. Puts a huge strain on the marriage, and her and her husband end up divorcing.
00:10:50
Speaker
And because of this, because her her partner is deployable and Deanne can't necessarily be left alone because she's having more and more manic episodes, she decides to move back to Spokane with her mom.
00:11:02
Speaker
Trying to provide a little bit of stability for the children. Also, because her ex-husband is deployable, they have to have somewhere that's stable that they can be at when he has to go away. Gotcha. So they just decide the best place is in Spokane with her mom.
00:11:17
Speaker
While living with her mom, the episodes worsen. Treatments aren't working. She's going to therapy. She's trying different medications. And it's just not working. She's more manic. She's more... just volatile all around, which I kind of understand.
00:11:31
Speaker
i don't know, just even as someone who doesn't have bipolar disorder, moving back in with my parents, especially with my own kids. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that'd be rough. I think I would murder someone.
00:11:42
Speaker
I think I would. I don't know if I could do that. Much love to my mom and dad, ah but like for real, ah space is nice, especially when you're used to living on your own.
00:11:53
Speaker
Absolutely. So it gets to the point where Deanne realizes she can't continue this. Something has to happen. These treatments aren't working. So she makes the decision to do inpatient therapy in Idaho.
00:12:07
Speaker
Okay. She sits her kids down. She says, Hey, I'm not doing well mentally. And this is kind of a hallmark of Dan too. Even though she's going through these troubles, she's very communicative with those around her and her kids. And she's always got a phone on her too. I should mention, she's always got her phone with her. She's always like, Hey,
00:12:25
Speaker
I've got to go away for a little bit. My mental health isn't good. Doesn't mean I don't love you. This isn't your fault. This is just me. I have to take care of myself so I can be the better version for you. And so she goes to treatment and then...
00:12:37
Speaker
She gets out. She moves to Spokane by herself. Her kids are still staying with her mom. And then, well, two her two youngest are with her mom. And then hey ah her oldest is with the dad still. Okay. She moves back to Spokane by November 2015.
00:12:52
Speaker
She's got her own place. And she seems to be getting her life back on track again. Good. Good. She's finally found a medication that helps her with her bipolar disorder. She's able...
00:13:04
Speaker
she's not constantly having to rotate drugs to make sure that she's stable. It's just, she found the right combination and she's doing fantastic. That's awesome. In fact, she's doing so good. She's able to maintain close relationships with her kids. Her and her mom have turned a new page.
00:13:22
Speaker
she's building these relationships back. She's going to her kids' schools, schools at lunch and like giving them lunches and then inviting them over for dinner. Like she's really, she's in the picture again. Nice.
00:13:33
Speaker
Which is really nice. And then she meets a man named Mike Tibbetts. Okay. They get engaged pretty quickly and, but by all accounts, they really loved each other and they fell fast and they fell very, very hard. Okay.
00:13:48
Speaker
Her brother starts receiving all these texts from her saying how happy she is and how in love she is and how he supports her no matter what. In fact, he's so supportive that he's allowing her to go back to cosmetology school because she's always wanted to do that. And he's going to pick up most of the bills so that she can you know do this dream that she's always had.
Stability and Engagement in Spokane
00:14:07
Speaker
Which sounds fantastic. Yeah. So on the morning of November 3rd, she starts getting ready for her first day of college cosmetology school. She's super excited. She gets to the school. She's super engaged. The teacher's saying, yeah, when we saw her, she was super engaged. She was very social. She began forming connections with classmates, as you do on the first day of school.
00:14:30
Speaker
Then she gets out of school. It's the evening of November 3rd, 2015. It's kind of a windy Tuesday night in Spokane, and Deanna's at home. And her eldest son's girlfriend, Melanie, stops by.
00:14:46
Speaker
Melanie and her oldest son are having some issues in their relationship. They took a little break. And Melanie just wants to talk to Deanne because she was like her mother. And just she wanted to talk through it.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah. So they do their nails. And Deanne's offering relationship advice saying, hey, you know, you guys will get through this. You guys will get back together. i definitely see that you guys are going to married one day. Like it's okay. He'll come back. Just take a deep breath. You do you right now and just do what's good for you. And so Melanie's feeling a little better. Then they go into how Deanne was feeling about the school. She says it was fantastic. It's what I've always wanted to do.
00:15:23
Speaker
I'm the happiest I've ever been. So Melanie leaves the house around 9 30 p.m. She gets home by 10 and she texts Deanne saying, Hey, I got home. And she receives a reply back saying, okay, thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
00:15:38
Speaker
Everything's going to be fine. Just take a deep breath. Then Mike, Deanne's fiance, he arrives home around 10 PM. He's an HVAC project manager.
00:15:50
Speaker
And so he works interesting hours so that he can support clients When he walks in the front door, he sees a note that Deanne has written saying, hey, I had a um i had a great day. i just finished doing nails with Melanie. I'm heading to the store to pick up a couple of things. I'll be back.
00:16:09
Speaker
So this is at 10 p.m. Okay. It now goes from 10 p.m. to 1130, and she's still not back. Oh, no. So he's getting a little concerned, and he just drives he decides to drive to the store, and the store is closed. Oops.
00:16:27
Speaker
They only live five minutes from the store. So panic really starts to set in for Mike. He decides that he's going to drive around. He drives around for three hours and he, there's no sign of her. He doesn't know where she's at.
00:16:40
Speaker
What the heck? And then it dawns on him. They're sharing each other's location. What year is this now? 2015. Oh, okay. okay Which I didn't know you could share locations in 2015, but apparently you can.
00:16:53
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. ah i don't know maybe they had it this is all from his mouth around for a while i feel
00:17:03
Speaker
ah maybe i'm just like late to the game i didn't think that came out until well actually no that's a lot no they had it in 2012 for sure so yeah they definitely had it in 2015 okay well that's ah our history lesson for today So he recalls that he' they're sharing each other's location and it's now 2.30 a.m. on the morning of November 4th.
00:17:28
Speaker
Okay. And he tracks her phone to her car, which is in a seedy part of town, not not the place you want to be at 2.30 in the morning.
00:17:39
Speaker
It's parked across the street from a concert venue in a rough area. And as he's calling the phone, he's hearing it ring from inside the car. What the heck? Which is not a good sign. He walks up to the car. He looks inside and you can see that her purse is just laid out on the car, in the car, just right there. oh my God.
00:17:58
Speaker
And her phone is clearly inside her purse. He tries the court car doors. They're all locked. He doesn't have a spare key, so he can't get into the car.
00:18:10
Speaker
So he's assuming that she's somewhere nearby. So he starts canvassing the neighborhood, but he's got this pit in his stomach because as I mentioned before, Deanne does not leave her phone.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah. It is attached to her. She's very communicative. If something's going on she's got her phone. She's, she's talking to you. Yeah. So he's like, this is very, very strange. Yeah. So he's walking around. He's also kind of like walking around close to the car. So if she does come back, he can kind of scope that out. And now it's, you know, 730 in the morning.
00:18:42
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. School's supposed to, her, her class, cosmetology class is starting. So he's like, okay, I'm going to call there and see if she shows up. And this is all just a weird coincidence.
00:18:53
Speaker
Calls the school. the The teacher says, no, she hasn't arrived So he starts freaking out even more like, okay, she's she's so excited about cosmetology school. There is no way that she would miss it.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah. So the professor asks, which I think is really cool of this professor. He asks, hey, I can print up missing posters. I can create missing person posters for you if you want to come down and i'll we'll create them together. We can start hanging about up everywhere. So Mike takes him up on this and they begin...
00:19:23
Speaker
Hanging but missing person posters all over. They're in bars. did Does he call the police at any point? Not yet. That's weird.
00:19:33
Speaker
That's what I was thinking too. But you also have to remember when she goes into manic episodes, sometimes she just kind ups and leaves. that's That's fair.
00:19:46
Speaker
But still, I feel like if I'm putting up missing posters, I'm calling the police like at the same time you know i'm just saying if i track someone's location to their car and it's a female woman if you will and their purse is in sight inside of a car yeah i immediately know they left in duress yes something is wrong we don't just leave our purses in a car like that absolutely not especially in a car across from a concert venue and a seedy part of town. Yeah. You're shoving that thing under the seat. It's in the glove box. It's in the trunk. It's not in plain view.
00:20:24
Speaker
No, no, no. And you're taking your phone with you.
00:20:28
Speaker
So it is a little sus that, you know, he starts hanging up, but Hey, at least he's making missing person vote posters. Yeah. Yeah. So that it's 1230, um,
00:20:41
Speaker
twelve thirty p m on the fourth And he receives, by he I mean Mike, receives an alert that Deanne's credit card has been used in Cheney, which is about four miles away from where he is in Spokane. okay um Instead of going to
The Mystery of Deanne's Disappearance
00:20:58
Speaker
the store where the credit card was used, he goes back to her car thinking this is where she's gonna show back up.
00:21:07
Speaker
He waits there for about four hours and she never shows back up.
00:21:12
Speaker
Another interesting choice. But he eventually makes his way to the store. So he gets the store and as he's walking inside, he sees an employee in the parking lot and he hands the missing persons poster over to this male employee in the parking lot. And he says, hey, have you seen Deanne?
00:21:30
Speaker
She's missing. We're trying to find her. Do you recognize her? or Have you seen her? And the guy says, you know, she looks familiar. I think I do know her, but I might just be mistaking her for someone else.
00:21:44
Speaker
That's an interesting comment to make. Yeah. That would leave me unsettled. But Mike, you know, he's in a panic. So he just says, okay, thank you. If you think of something, just here's the call, the number on the bottom. That's my number. um Just let me know if you, you know, anything. And he rolls inside.
00:22:00
Speaker
And when he gets inside the store, he notices that there's surveillance cameras. Ooh. Okay. He talks to an employee and says, Hey, can i look at these video cameras? I will. My wife is missing or my fiance is missing. I need to see them.
00:22:14
Speaker
And they say, well, we can't just show these to you, so you're going to have to call the manager. So this is when Mike, i so by all accounts, he goes to work at this point.
00:22:26
Speaker
Like he goes to his actual job? to his actual job. What?
00:22:34
Speaker
Either way, he he doesn't call the manager immediately. He waits until the morning of Thursday the 5th. So again, she went missing on the night, pretty late in the evening on the 3rd. It is now the morning of the 5th.
00:22:47
Speaker
And this is when he calls the manager of the store and asks to see the surveillance footage. And so the manager says, sure sure, sure. You'll have to come in on Saturday though, and I can show you the footage then.
00:23:03
Speaker
So it's it's now been 36 hours with no contact. She doesn't have a phone. She doesn't have a purse. She doesn't have a car. There's been no purchases at this point on the card anymore. Very bizarre.
00:23:16
Speaker
So this is also beyond the normal timeframe for her manic episodes. Like she would definitely have reached out within this time period based on past events. So he's really starting to freak out.
00:23:32
Speaker
And He decides that on, um, to reach out to the police eventually. This is when he officially reaches out to police. Okay.
00:23:43
Speaker
So at 10, 20 AM on Thursday, the 5th, he files a missing persons report with the police department. They say, well, my god we'll take it down now and we'll give it to a detective. Holy cow. That was a hard word for me to say today.
00:23:58
Speaker
And we'll get someone assigned to the case. Mike is saying he wasn't super thrilled with the reception he got. It was clear that they weren't necessarily taking it seriously because this is, you know, 30 something year old woman who has gone missing. She has a history of going missing.
00:24:17
Speaker
They're thinking that she'll just probably turn up. It is what it is We'll get somebody on it when we can. Yeah. Yeah. Also, from the detective's mouth, so Detective Jeff Barrington, he literally says missing persons cases usually resolve themselves for the most part. So it's our lowest priority. What the heck?
00:24:38
Speaker
In cases, which is a very interesting statement to make. yeah But that's where we are. So ah what I also want to point out at this time is Mike hasn't told her family yet.
00:24:55
Speaker
What? Isn't what? That's so odd. Again. Yes. I was also concerned about that, but you know who he did tell who the local media.
00:25:09
Speaker
Don't tell me her family fanned out from the media. So her brother who's in Texas finds out through a friend, a friend texts him and he says, Hey, are you, is your sister missing? And the brother's like, no, what are you talking about? She's, she's fine.
00:25:24
Speaker
The friend says, i think you should turn on the news because your sister, I think your sister is missing. So her brother, her best friend turns on the news and this is how he finds out that his sister is missing.
00:25:36
Speaker
That's ridiculous. He calls the mom. The mom had no idea. And she lives in Spokane.
00:25:47
Speaker
I would be devastated. i don't know how I would... i i would really have a hard time with this situation. like In my view, Mike should have at least told the family before he told the media. i get maybe he thinks that she's having a manic episode. He doesn't want to worry the family. She's getting her life together. she He doesn't want to...
00:26:09
Speaker
spin people up about this but if you're contacting the media to say she's missing you have to tell the family first you can't 100 they've also had more experience with this like what if there were specific places she had gone or things that she did like they've been around so much longer and seen so many more of these um these like um episodes and what if she's contacted them what if she's at their house yes yes like that's crazy so When Carson calls the mom, she immediately ah feels that something is wrong.
00:26:42
Speaker
This isn't, she has that mom feeling like, I don't think my daughter's coming back this time. And she's devastated and she's really struggling, but she's going to hold it together because reminded you, she still has those two babies that she's looking after for Deanne.
00:26:59
Speaker
It's now Saturday. The police still haven't officially assigned a detective. So Mike is still doing this on his own. He shows up to the a grocery store and he sees the video feage footage footage.
00:27:13
Speaker
and And what he sees on the video footage is that Deanne did in fact come into the store. What? At noon. And she was the one that ran that credit card.
00:27:25
Speaker
No way. Yes. She ran the credit card and, but she's acting strange. She keeps looking behind her. You can tell she's like a little wobbly. Like something is not quite right. Like when she's kind of like, she looks like she's ah maybe like a drunk girl or something that she's disoriented for sure.
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah. And she buys a couple packs of birthday candles and a pint of vodka. And then you see her leave the store.
00:27:56
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. And what is also interesting is that this isn't the first time that she's been in this parking lot today and someone has seen her and thought she looked disoriented and tried to do something about it.
00:28:14
Speaker
So before Deanna even goes into this store, she has been visiting all of the nearby businesses So the the grocery store is kind of in one of those complexes where it's like surrounded by other small, like a strip mall type situation. Yeah.
00:28:28
Speaker
And so she's been going into all these businesses and she's acting weird, very bizarre. In fact, one of the businesses she went into was a salon and she kept calling the salon owner mommy and telling the salon owner that she had been drugged.
00:28:45
Speaker
Yeah. Which isn't great. Yeah. And so... two women see this, they hear her and they end up actually sitting with Deanne for two hours asking, Hey, can we take you home? What's your name? What's going on? Tell us what's happening. And Deanne just keeps saying, you know, I've been beaten. I've been drugged. I don't feel good. Someone's trying
Investigation Challenges
00:29:09
Speaker
to kill me. She's having these interesting thoughts going through her head and, but she's refusing to allow them to take her home. She, she says she doesn't want to go home. This, when she goes home, like bad things happen essentially.
00:29:22
Speaker
Oh my God. Which is an interesting data point. Yeah. But they get to a point where they say, okay, she's clearly not going to allow us to help her. Let's call an ambulance and call the police and see if they can do something, which good on those two women. ah Like good on them.
00:29:41
Speaker
What happens next is very upsetting. Yeah. So the ambulance arrives, but Deanne refuses treatment, so they eventually have to leave. But ah Officer Davida Zinkgraf, I think that's how you say that, Zinkgraf, responded to a disturbance, um the the disturbance call, which is Deanne.
00:30:03
Speaker
And ah essentially was coming to do a welfare check on her. yeah um Deanne didn't want anything to do with the playoffs police officers. She's like, i'm I was attacked, but I'm fine now. Leave me alone. And she wouldn't she refused to give her name to the officer. And after 30 minutes, Deanne just got up and walked away.
00:30:26
Speaker
And she walked into the grocery store, which is where she purchased the birthday candles and the vodka. She walks back out. The officer is still there watching her.
00:30:39
Speaker
Watches Deanne go into a coffee shop and sit there for about 30 minutes and then she gets called away. The officer doesn't arrest Deanne or send her force her to go to the hospital because Spokane apparently doesn't have any public intoxication laws.
00:30:55
Speaker
and Oh, interesting. Which is interesting. So as long as you can physically take care of yourself, they will not detain you, which seems like a gray area to me. i am not sure that Deanne was necessarily physically taking care of herself. agree. That seems very ambiguous.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yes. So that is the last thing that we know of for Saturday at this point time. Okay. So then we go to Sunday. So this was Saturday. The footage is seen. And then we have this backstory of what was happening in the morning. What's also interesting is that Mike missed Deanne only by like four hours.
00:31:37
Speaker
What? Because remember when he saw that charge go on the grocery store, he immediately went to her car, which was only a couple miles away. Oh my gosh. He, instead of going to the grocery store said she's got to come back to our car now.
00:31:52
Speaker
And so when he eventually said, i don't think she's coming here and went to the grocery store, he only missed her by a couple hours. Oh my goodness. Which would make my stomach hurt so bad. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:04
Speaker
But it is now 6 a.m. on Sunday, and Mike receives a call from a man who said he had been with Deanne, and he knows this because he saw the missing person's flyer, and he could meet with Mike and tell him more about it.
00:32:22
Speaker
So at 1030, Mike and his sister meet up with this man in the same grocery store parking lot where Deanne went missing. um Any guess on who this man is? Is it the guy from the grocery store the first time? It sure is.
00:32:35
Speaker
What the hell? Yes. so apparently the grocery store man is now saying, hey, I apologize. I did know her. I just didn't want to necessarily admit to it. I didn't want to get her in trouble. But I i met her on the night of the third, which is the night she went missing.
00:32:55
Speaker
She was outside of a bar and she asked me for a cigarette. I gave her a cigarette and we ended up hitting it off. We started talking. We went bar hopping. We smoked some Mary Jane.
00:33:07
Speaker
We just had a good time and she didn't necessarily want to go home. So she came over to my house and she stayed the night. What? To which Mike is like, what do you, did you guys have a physical relationship? Like what happened? He's like, no, no, no. We just hung out. We had a couple more beers and then she just passed out on my couch and she just stayed the night.
00:33:30
Speaker
That seems a little sus. It seems very sus. And that is when on November 4th, he actually drives her to the grocery store parking lot because they want to buy cigarettes. He leaves her in his car.
00:33:47
Speaker
And when he gets back from buying cigarettes, she's gone. And this is when she's going to all the businesses saying she got drugged and attacked and beat up. And he, so he gets back to his car.
00:34:00
Speaker
sees that she's gone and circles the parking lot a couple of times, doesn't see her. So he just goes home. What the heck? Meanwhile, her car keys are in his car.
00:34:15
Speaker
And so the reason why the grocery store employee wanted to meet with Mike is so that he can return the car keys.
00:34:22
Speaker
What the heck? What the heck? And so Mike is super unsettled. He's like, what what the hell are you telling me? like He's now like, is she cheating on me? like what's What's going on here? But regardless, the the grocery store employee is like, okay, I'm going to leave. He leaves. Mike now has the car keys. So Mike, instead of calling the police saying, hey, I have the car keys, you might want to get somebody over to see if something happened in the car. He just immediately goes over to the car, drives it back to his house, takes the phone, goes through it.
00:34:55
Speaker
grabs all of her personal belongings out of the car and has it at home. Oh my God. Then later that night, Mike is still feeling unsettled and is kind of pissed. So he tracks down the location of this grocery store worker and him and his friends go to the guy's house and respectfully, respectfully request a tour of the home, if you will.
00:35:17
Speaker
shot And I don't think the grocery store worker necessarily had a, um a way out of this i think it was gonna happen one way or another but mike thoroughly in his opinion searched the home and she wasn't there which again like i get it but also gotta wait for the police on some of this stuff man right this feels like some weird like almost vigilante shit like some wild west behavior yes yes
00:35:50
Speaker
So then Monday rolls around. So now we're almost a week that Deanna is missing. And this is when detective Jeff Barrington officially gets assigned the case. So this is on Monday, which almost a week later, that is, seems like a very long timeline, yes but we have to remind ourselves that she didn't actually get reported missing until Thursday. So that is still a lot of time in between, but not as much.
00:36:17
Speaker
Um, not as much if you, if you have that in context, um, So they immediately pull the phone records and they don't notice anything suspicious. And in fact, all of her outgoing texts and calls stop on the night of the third. Okay.
00:36:34
Speaker
The last text, which broke my fucking heart. The last text that she sent out was at 10 PM to her eldest son, saying that, hey, I had my first day at cosmetology school today. absolutely love it. I hope you're so proud of me. I can't wait to start making money. I hope you're proud of me. I'm making it. That's so sweet. Oh, my gosh. Which is so sweet and so, so devastating.
00:37:00
Speaker
And that is kind of where things go cold. What? Until November 7th through the 12th, her credit cards start being used.
00:37:13
Speaker
Okay. At all, like at bars, at gas stations, at grocery stores. And so the police are like, oh, we're going to pull as much surveillance footage as we can to see who the person is. Is it Deanne using these cards? Who's using the cards? Well, the surveillance footage shows that a man was using these cards. Okay.
00:37:35
Speaker
They don't know who it is. So they put out like a bolo saying, Hey, if you know who this person is, they take some surveillance photo snapshots. If you know who this man is, please let us know.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah. Turns out the man is named Randy Riley. Minor criminal behaviors or whatever. So like petty crimes, theft, stuff like that. Unfortunately for the police, he is very unstable when it comes to housing. So he's sometimes housed, sometimes not housed. And at this point in time, he just like literally days before got evicted from the house that he was living in.
00:38:11
Speaker
Oh, man. And so they're having to track him down. They have no idea where he's at. So then on November 25th, which is Thanksgiving, right?
Unresolved Mystery of Deanne Hastings
00:38:25
Speaker
Usually, yeah, right around there. around there Anyways, on November 25th, the landlord ends up seeing Randy's face on the news, asking if you know where his location is. And the landlord's like, hey, that's the guy that was renting my place. And the last time I saw him was on November 4th. And I'm almost positive he was with that girl who's in the missing person flyers.
00:38:49
Speaker
No. And so she calls the police and says, hey, in fact, I know they were together because I stopped because she was acting belligerent and laid on the ground.
00:39:02
Speaker
And I stopped and asked if she's okay.
00:39:07
Speaker
So this is the second time somebody was saying she's acting real bizarre and like didn't close that feedback loop. Oh my So then, um,
00:39:20
Speaker
They're seen together. They're kind of walking towards Deanne's house. In fact, they're only 300 yards from her house at this point in time. Are you kidding me? Then a neighbor in the same apartment complex. So the landlord saw them and then a neighbor saw them.
00:39:36
Speaker
The neighbor was so freaked out with how Deanne's behavior was that she stops and gets out of her car, walks up to Deanne and says, are you okay? Okay. Deanne starts expounding on how she's getting divorced, how it's like a really interesting time for her right now. She's clearly belligerent. Like she smells like booze and the woman, instead of saying, Hey, can I take you home?
00:39:59
Speaker
Says, okay, are you all right? And she says, yeah, yeah, I'm okay. I'm with my friends. And she says, okay, she gets in her car and leaves. Oh my God.
00:40:08
Speaker
So this is when They're able to, so the police are actually getting another tip after this, after the neighbor comes and after the landlord comes, where Riley's whereabouts are. Okay. They find him, they bring him in, and this is Riley's story about what happened and why he has the credit cards that are in Deanne's name.
00:40:31
Speaker
Riley was with his friend James, and at about 1.30 November they met up with
00:40:42
Speaker
about six blocks from the grocery store in front of their storage unit. Deanne is acting super friendly, says she has vodka. They go into the storage unit, drink some vodka together, are there for about an hour and come back out. And Deanne says, I want to go home. And they say that they were walking her home.
00:41:06
Speaker
When they get to this place where the landlord and the neighbor saw them, 300 yards from her house. Deanne says, i have to pee really bad. So she goes up this incline, goes to the bathroom.
00:41:23
Speaker
But before she does that, she hands her credit card to Riley and says, you should go buy yourself some food. And then they just don't see her after that. What?
00:41:36
Speaker
But then his story changes and says, oh, actually what really happened was the next day. So on the fifth, we were driving down the road again and we actually saw her coat on the side of the road. So we stopped and we picked the coat up and we grabbed the cards out of the the coat. Like her wallet was in there. So we just grabbed the cards.
00:42:02
Speaker
So at this point, The police are like, well, at least we have a last known location. So they bring out the cadaver dogs, helicopters, heat sensors, and they find nothing. Nothing? Nothing at all. Nothing.
00:42:14
Speaker
There's nothing at all. At this point, after they've they've chased down the Riley leads and done the extensive searches, they're still searching for the the James, the one that was with Riley. So they haven't gotten to him yet. But they're like, okay,
00:42:30
Speaker
I think we may have missed someone very pivotal and we also need these, um, her dance phone. So they go to Mike and they say, Hey Mike, can you please give us the the note that she left for you and also her phone so we can do some forensics on it?
00:42:44
Speaker
Yeah. He says no. What? Yeah. He just says no. Any reason given? It is the last note that she's ever going to give him. So she's, he's not giving it back. And the photos on her phone are probably the last ones they're ever going to take together. So he wants to keep them to which I say, why don't you just forward the photos to yourself?
00:43:06
Speaker
Yes. Why don't you have them take a photo copy? They'll give it back to you, but he's outright refusing to which I say, why can't they just put in a search warrant? Seriously.
00:43:18
Speaker
Detectives grow suspicious. Like, why aren't you giving us this note? And why aren't you giving us the phone? yeah And so they go to Amanda or they go to Deanne's best friend, Amanda. And she has some stories.
00:43:30
Speaker
Oh, no. She is saying that actually Deanne has been trying to leave Mike for multiple weeks now. What? And that they're fighting constantly.
00:43:43
Speaker
Mike is saying we never fought. The only thing we fought about was like which bread to buy in the grocery store, which is interesting thing to say, but regardless, Deanne also believed that Mike was drugging her and Amanda shared the text of where this correspondence was happening. Like, Hey, I'm pretty sure Mike is drugging me. I'm not feeling well. And she even was so sketched out about this, that she went to the yeah ah ER for testing.
00:44:11
Speaker
Oh my God. And the the ER r says, no, you don't have any drugs in your system. You're fine. You can go home. And she was kind of disappointed, but she was also like, you know what?
00:44:22
Speaker
At least it's documented. So if something happens to me, they'll know. God. Which is a crazy last thing to say to your best friend. Yes. Oh my god Well, at the same time, Mike is saying, no, no, no. no I didn't drug her. She's actually just been super paranoid lately. She's been hearing voices. She's been fearing that people are poisoning our water supply, pointing to the neighbors, pointing to him, pointing to her ex-boyfriend.
00:44:55
Speaker
And this is when it comes out that, oh, there might have been a reason for this. Her insurance company recently said that they will no longer cover that bipolar medication that was like life changing for her.
00:45:10
Speaker
Oh my God. They said it's too expensive. You're going to have to go back to your old medications. We're not covering it. that's That's such, that's so horrible. It's bullshit. It's fucking bullshit.
00:45:21
Speaker
Yes. And so she has to go to her doctor. She goes to her doctor and says, can you please write something to the insurance company saying, I've already tried those other medications and they don't work. This is the only one that works. The doctor's like, yes, it's clearly the only one that works for you. I'm going write um a request and ask them to cover it. And the insurance says, no, we're not covering it again.
00:45:42
Speaker
Which again is bullshit. Why is the insurance saying that the doctor is wrong? It's infuriating. So then... Mike says he actually offered to pay cash for the medication so that she could stay on it.
00:45:56
Speaker
Yeah. The insurance company says, if you do that, we'll just drop you completely. What? And during this whole period of time, it's about four to four to six weeks, she's not had her bipolar medication.
00:46:10
Speaker
Oh my God. Which again might explain why this erratic behavior is kind of going on where she's feeling like she's drugged, but then also... is she being, I mean, everyone is acting sus. Yes. Yes.
00:46:27
Speaker
Everyone is acting sus. So she has been offered medication before this disappearance. So, but again, her manic episodes lasted a max of 36, 36 hours. Like, yeah and she always had her phone on her. She would like text people. So she was like, they were confused.
00:46:46
Speaker
So then it is January, 2016.
00:46:50
Speaker
And everyone gets these frantic or not everyone. Amanda has set up a Facebook page. That's like, find Deanne and James, the man who was with Riley m starts calling frantically saying that she, he wants to speak to the family. he's so He's like, he's seemingly very overwhelmed and guilty. And he's trying to contact her. He gets in contact with Deanne's brother, Carson. Okay.
00:47:13
Speaker
And they have a conversation at first is very confrontational, but then it comes out that, um, James saw Dan go up to go to the bathroom. James followed her up there because she was very wobbly on her feet.
00:47:26
Speaker
ah He tried to get her to come back down the hill and she refused. So he comes back down the hill and that is when Riley goes up the hill. Riley goes up for the hill for about 10 minutes.
00:47:38
Speaker
Oh no. Comes back down and Dan never came with him. That is when Riley says, okay, we can go home now. She's fine. So they leave.
00:47:49
Speaker
What the fuck? That is the last time James saw Deanne alive. In fact, that's the last person time anyone saw Deanne alive. Oh my God. So on Deanne's 36th birthday, a couple months later, Amanda, her best friend, organizes a search party.
00:48:07
Speaker
There's a strong turnout. and Unfortunately, nothing was found, but Mike and Carson did not attend this search, which I think is interesting for Mike to not, because he said that they, Mike said he didn't attend because they were already searching places that he already searched.
00:48:28
Speaker
Carson didn't go because, which I understand. He says, if they found something, I don't think I could have handled it. Gotcha. Got it. So Mike actually ends up moving out of the home that both Deanne and him shared.
00:48:42
Speaker
Oh my God. wow And so detective Jeff decides that he's going to run cadaver dogs through the house and finds nothing. Then the store clerk that was with Deanne moves back to Florida shortly after this whole thing happens.
00:48:59
Speaker
Now, apparently he's from Florida and just, he wasn't making it in Spokane. So he just moves back, but he still moves back like two months after this whole thing is going down. There's so many suspicious people in this. I, I, I can't make heads or tails of anything.
00:49:15
Speaker
Literally like ah crazy. so And then Riley, because he was using the credit cards and there was no express permission anywhere, he did end up going to prison for 13 months, but is now out.
00:49:28
Speaker
And this is where I leave you. This is where i leave the story. heck It's unknown if you know there was a manic episode and something tragic happened where she may have you know taken her own life. It's unknown if she was having a manic episode and was taken advantage of by people that found her in the street.
00:49:47
Speaker
Maybe she wasn't having a manic episode and she really was being drugged or she was drugged by the store clerk the night that they went out to the bar and she was still feeling those after effects. yeah No one truly knows what happened.
00:50:00
Speaker
The only thing is that there's so many suspicious people. And there were so many people that saw her before she went missing and like tried to help or maybe could have pushed a little harder to to get her home. She was only 300 yards from her house when she went missing. That's so sad.
00:50:19
Speaker
And as of today, she is still missing. So if you have any information about this disappearance or... any information at all please contact the spokane police department at 509-456-2233 let's give her family some peace if you know something say something absolutely that's the story i have for you today wow it's not a mind fuck that is that is i again i don't know how to make heads or tails of any of it like was it her husband was it um
00:50:54
Speaker
Yeah, the store clerk was the guys that were with her. Like there's so many people in this. Oh my God. Yeah. Is it something where like she was having a manic episode? She did end up going back home, but Mike was so mad that she potentially slept with someone else that something happened or like, did she walk off and meet somebody else? Who's even worse than the two guys? Did Riley do something? Did James do something? Like it was just a series of she was unsteady on her feet. Like could it have been no one and just a horrible accident. we have no idea.
00:51:22
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, and maybe she fell asleep over in Spokane in November, early November. It's pretty cold. It's really cold. Yeah. If you fall asleep, you're probably getting a hypothermia. Yeah.
00:51:33
Speaker
But then again, there was no cadaver dog. She was only 300 feet from our house. Oh my goodness. Just, just insane. Absolutely crazy. Yeah.
00:51:44
Speaker
So I hope we find her. I hope for her kids that that's something, something comes up and that the family just either has closure or a little bit of peace. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest.
00:51:59
Speaker
If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow. So you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time. Thanks for joining us on beneath the evergreens. We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us.
00:52:11
Speaker
Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked.