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I'm Lester Holt.

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Tonight on Dateline she had a full life. All posted on Facebook was a clue to her death there too. She opened up her boutique.

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You had gone to Europe. She was going out dancing at night. She was excited.

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She was taking lots of pictures and post on social media. She was I think somebody is breaking into my Facebook. I also think somebody is breaking into my house. She felt like she had a stalker.

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And her obviously I haven't heard from my daughter since.

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Inside the apartment, there's bloodstains on the carpet and blood spatter on the wall. And she's missing and she's missing.

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They find a notebook, says, I'll have great pleasure tearing her apart. The hairs on your neck stand up. I just went, oh, my God, you've got to look into this guy. My world had ended.

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He was so good at pretending he's a monster. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The Dead of Night. It was the dead of night and she ran as fast as she could. Frightened, panicked, wearing next to nothing.

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She climbed over the iron gate, pounded on the door and begged for help. Who was this woman? What, or who was she running from and would she make it out alive?

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Monrovia, California, a quaint, family friendly city nestled in the foothills of the rugged San Gabriel Mountains, one of the many suburbs of Los Angeles. It was the ideal landing spot for 31 year old La Julia McCoy. She worked hard to get here.

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She was the only one in my family actually went to college where she did, being raised by a single mother for David Clark and his wife, Alicia.

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Their niece, La Joya's success always seemed within her reach.

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She knew what she wanted.

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And education was the very top thing, you know, and school is where Lovejoy, a star student, would shine the brightest.

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I went to a couple of graduations down at university and I couldn't have been more proud.

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For Lozoya, education was a gift to share with others, like her younger sister Breanna. Growing up poor, although it didn't feel like it. Sometimes she just wanted better for herself and for the rest of us.

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When Julia's mom and younger siblings left California and moved to Las Vegas, the stayed behind and strengthened the bond she had with her aunt and uncle.

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I knew it was unconditional love for me when she told me, Uncle Dave, I think you should run for mayor and think, wow, he really thinking a lot of me soon.

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Lovejoy, I met Hosie Turner, an aspiring actor and playwright. Hello, my name is Helms. They turn out things got serious. They moved in together and had two children.

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That relationship did not last. But Lovejoy and Hosain were devoted to their kids and committed to co parenting, and Joya continued to pursue her dreams.

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Yeah, that's one thing about her. She never gave up. You know, she was very determined.

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She always kept evolving. Like Julia had a good job with L.A. County as an auditor. She also opened her own clothing boutique and was developing a smartphone app and she was just moving forward.

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She enjoyed her job, loved it. And, you know, when she started her boutique after that, I'm thinking where she getting all as time to do these things.

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You know, Lovejoy is good friend. Eva Mendoza visited the boutique and understood why success was critical for Lovejoy.

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What she wanted to do was definitely be her own boss, to spend more time with her kids. She just wanted them to have like the best life she was learning.

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The piano is going to baby. She was also teaching what she learned to her kids.

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Ligeria was spreading her wings, but was she also spreading herself too thin? Even though she shared child care duties with those eight, she needed a helping hand salute. Julia called her mom in Las Vegas and asked her to have one of Lovejoy's sisters come out to California to help watch the kids.

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The next day, the Vegas bus pulled into L.A. almost an hour late. Well, Julia's sister stepped off the bus and did not see La Joya, who was supposed to meet her. Her uncle David then got a call. I was at work and she's crying.

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It was his sister, Lovejoy's mom.

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The joy didn't show up. And she's like, I'm worried because she knew she was coming. She actually sent for you.

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Call the Joya. No answer. Exactly. You're texting her. She's not at home. No.

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David left work to collect his younger niece. He was perplexed.

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I was hoping she just was somewhere and would show up and say, you know what, I'm sorry I was doing this or doing that.

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I thought she just lost track of time. And, you know, and we do that because, like I said, she was juggling the booty, the work. And I figure, well, maybe, you know what, she lost track of time.

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Well, according to social media legend, might have been juggling something else just a week before she had posted a message on Facebook that read, OK, he made me breakfast and has a rooftop pool. He's a keeper. The man in the photograph, David and Alicia, had no clue when I seen that.

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I'm like, OK, she's back in a relationship. I'm hoping this one is a good one.

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The way the picture looked, I'm like, what is the record producer? You know, I don't know what he did, but I'm like, maybe they took a flight somewhere.

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I don't know, one day passed, then two days. Still no sign of La Joya. On Friday, June 12th, 2015, her mom called the Monrovia Police Department.

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I'm thinking that she might be sick or unconscious in her apartment.

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She was worried because she knew things about La Joya. The police did not. It was something one of Lovejoy's friends knew, too. When we come back, she goes, I think somebody is breaking into my Facebook even scarier with someone breaking into her house.

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She goes, I know for sure that I'm leaving some stuff somewhere. And when I'm coming home, it's somewhere else. June 12th, 2015, was a summer Friday in Monrovia, California, families gathered at the local street fair, leaving their hectic work weeks behind them. Not so for Summer Jackson, a long nightmare was about to begin. Her daughter, Legum McCoy, wasn't answering calls or texts, and now Somer was on the phone to police.

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Obviously, I haven't heard from my daughter to say for many departments, that call is as routine as they come.

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Adult children don't always check in with their parents. Then Summer shared this.

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She keeps telling me that your tires were slashed a few days before, like a over the weekend. Nobody stopping her a little bit. So I'm sure that's what makes any difference. All right. We won't go and we will find out, OK? Oh. Oh, thank you so much. Just don't worry.

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Lovejoy's mom was one of the few people who knew about her daughter's closely guarded secret. She believed someone was stalking her.

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Logia also told her friend Eva. I was always, always worried about her.

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Lovejoy had just broken up with Jose when she and ever became friends. It was a whole new world. She opened up her boutique. She started going to the beach in bikinis. She had gone to Europe. She was going out dancing at night.

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Ever says La Joya loved her new freedom and was starting to date again. She was very beautiful, very beautiful. So she she never had a problem.

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I liked the way she was with me, with guys coming up to her and trying to get her number.

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Were there guys that she was going out with that you were worried about that? You didn't trust me.

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Everybody. I heard it. Just any guy. Ligeria rekindled old flames and started new ones, often posting about them on Facebook. Like this guy. Luther was a friend from her past.

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She had reconnected with she was looking for, like, you know, marriage, like, you know, a life partner.

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Turned out that wasn't Luther. They did remain friends. And according to Eva Longoria, dating life rarely blossomed into anything serious. Something seemed to be holding her back.

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She was I think somebody is breaking into my Facebook. I also think somebody is breaking into my house.

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And ask her, what makes you think that she will, I know if I know for sure that I'm leaving some stuff somewhere. And when I'm coming home, it's somewhere else, Ligeria said things weren't just moved around, some of them were missing.

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The first thing that came into my mind. It's like you're under a lot of stress. You know, it's easy to forget, you know, where you leave things or misplace things. You know, I told you, it happens to all of us. I think you're just a little stressed now.

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La Joya was missing after her mom called Monrovia P.D. They went to La Julia's apartment. Blinds were drawn.

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They couldn't see in the windows. Check the doors, door was locked.

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Sergeant Chad Harvey was a detective back in 2015. He says patrol officers found Ledger's apartment locked and secure, couldn't find anything suspicious.

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Anything out of the normal look? No, everything looked normal at the time. So they went ahead and contacted Lovejoy's mother and told her nothing seems peculiar and left it at that luxurious mom wasn't alone.

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That night, police heard from other worried friends and family in Texas.

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And last night, if she did not respond, I have an employee that I been reported to work.

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Officers went back for a second look and they started talking to some neighbors. Nothing really seemed out of the ordinary again.

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Police called Lovejoy's ex, Joseph Turner, the father of their two children. He said the last time he saw a joyo was the previous weekend when he dropped off the kids at her place. A few days later, he picked up the kids as usual. Police also called Lovejoy's cell phone carrier, who told them Lovejoy's cell was active that day. When La Julian's mom heard that she told police she would hold off on filing a missing persons report.

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Maybe La Joya would contact her. So we waited a few days. As Friday night drew to a close, news about Lovejoy's disappearance was already making the rounds. La Julia's sister Brianna heard it from her grandmother.

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She said it very nonchalant. She just told me that while Julia hasn't talked to my mom in a few days and me knowing, look, Julia, I felt like maybe she just wanted some space, it wasn't uncommon for her to, like, disconnect from time to time.

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Ever remember the conversation she'd had with little joy a week before?

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She told me that she wanted to, you know, just escape. She found a place like a retreat in Arizona, no cell phones, whatever, meditation and whatnot. I, I think it's a great idea. I think it's going to help you gather your thoughts.

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Lovejoy, I had a lot to think about earlier that week. She'd gone to Happy Hour with her friend Bernadette, who sometimes helped out with Lagunas Clothing Boutique. They talked about Lovejoy's decision to close her store due to financial problems. Despite that setback, Bernadette said she didn't see any signs.

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Lovejoy wanted to escape, unplug or vanish.

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Things are OK now because she closed the store, so now she has that stress off of her. She is very positive about the future.

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She even posted this video of herself dancing in the boutique just days before the doors closed for good.

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So where was she? Well, Julia's brother called Luthor, even though they'd never met to ask if he'd heard from La Joya. In fact, he had, Luthor told him. But that was a few days ago. After that call, Luthor said he went by La Joya's apartment.

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I went to see if I've seen her car out there, but I didn't clear her parking spaces like in a bank and like to the stay right there.

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So Luther said he didn't knock on her door. It had now been nearly a week since La Joya had gone silent. With a clock ticking loudly in her head, is mom again called police officers, made a third trip to La Julia's apartment and this time they forced their way in.

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And what they found was a crime scene coming up.

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I notice that there's bloodstains on the carpet. What had happened and where was La Joya? The answer just might be on video. A neighbor put up a motion camera. That camera was faced at the perfect position when Dateline continues. When you finish bringing the latest riveting podcast on your list, there's always one lingering question staring you in the face. Now what? Sure, you could deep dive down the Wikipedia wormhole researching everything related to the show. Honestly, has anyone not done this?

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But when your brain or your browser tabs are full to the brim, it might be time to take a load off. That's when I like to clear a few levels on best friends. Best Friends is the infamously impossible to put down puzzle game with over 100 million downloads and counting. It's free to download and has literally millions of five star reviews on the Apple App Store and Google Play. I love to knock out a few levels while I'm waiting for dinner to cook.

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It's easy to get lost in all the new events and challenges and I really like that. It helps me take a break from mindlessly scrolling social media download best feeds free today on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That's friends without the are best friends.

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The streets were quiet that warm summer afternoon in Monrovia inside LA, Julia McCoy's apartment. It was quiet, too. I went in through the window. I yelled who I was yelled for Logia. No answer.

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Detective Harvey opened the front door for his partner. As we did. We entered, still announcing our presence. Nobody was inside. What's it look like in there? It's clean.

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Doesn't look like anything out of the normal, some clothes lying around, just normal, everyday things.

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Then they looked in the main bedroom where it didn't look normal at all.

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I noticed that there's bloodstains on the carpet.

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I then noticed blood stains on the mattress and blood spatter on the wall and all of luxurious bedding was gone and she's missing.

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Well, you've been doing this a while. What are the odds that that person who was missing is still alive?

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We like to think that they are. We don't know that they aren't. In L.A. County, a small department like Monrovia often turns to the sheriff's department for a possible murder case like this one. That evening, Detective Eddie Brown and his partner were on call.

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We got a call from our residence and we go straight to the location.

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Brown skinned Lovejoy's apartment.

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The kid's room was totally disheveled. The drawers were taken out. Some of them were on the floor. Some of them were partially open. Clothing material was on the floor.

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It looked a mess, like Julia's car was gone and detectives noticed her purse and phone were missing due and someone robbed the apartment and taken Lovejoy with them. Detective Brown didn't think so.

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There was no forced entry or somebody can push their way in. If he did that, why would he take the bedsheets if something didn't occur?

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If this is a pushing bad guy and he disables or kills her, he's going to leave it right there. He's going to steal what he's going to steal and leave right there. No reason to take her body.

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Right. Brown believed the most likely scenario was that someone staged the scene to look like a robbery, which meant La Joya was probably the target because the woman's bed sheets were gone, which I believe that was used to transport her out of the house.

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So she was either knocked out unconscious or dead.

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The apartment also smelled like bleach, which tells me that someone probably try to clean the crime scene.

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And then came a lead. Was there a video record of what had happened?

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A neighbor directly across from her apartment was having a problem with some petty theft. So he decided to put up a motion camera. And it's that type of camera that, you know, it has to be activated by a sensor. So an animal or a person walking by. And that camera was faced at the perfect position.

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Investigators downloaded the neighbor's video. You don't usually get that lucky. No, that's why I was very excited about this camera, especially when I started watching the video, because you could see the door clear, as clear as a bell.

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Brown watch that video for hours. I keep playing it over and over open to see her being carried out of that apartment. That's what he wanted to see.

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But it wasn't there.

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Her door is too far away for the motion to activate the camera. So you're lucky, but your own luck. Yeah, I needed a cat to walk past there at just the right. That's just the right time.

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No cat and still no luck. Julia McCoy. Police put out a bulletin for a silver Toyota Camry, Latoya's car.

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And hours after the alert went out, a patrol officer found it not far from her apartment parked in a residential neighborhood.

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A parking ticket had been wedged into the doorframe and there was something inside. The passenger and driver's windows were tinted.

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The officer took a closer look and he saw it. It was a body. Coming up, I just felt like my world had ended Lovejoy Joyous loved ones get terrible news and investigators make a discovery that's going to make everybody sit up a little taller in the saddle. That's a red flag for us.

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Yes.

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Less than two miles from La Joya McCoy's apartment sat her silver Toyota Camry. It had been parked beneath the summer sun for who knows how many days inside, beneath a blanket was a female body.

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She's on the passenger side of the driver's passenger side, which tells us clearly that the perpetrator drove her to this location. She had a ligature marks around her neck.

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News spread quickly. A candlelight vigil was held at Ledger's apartment. NBC station KMBC was there throughout the night. More and more gathered word spread. The joy of McCoy was not missing anymore. I just felt like my world had ended. It was tough.

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Her aunt and uncle kept hoping it was all some kind of mistake. That's not going to be heard.

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They're going to say she's OK. They're here with somebody else.

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You know, she's a mother. She's a sister. She's a daughter. Who would want to do this to her? I, I just couldn't understand it.

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They couldn't think of anyone who had an issue with La Joya except maybe the father of her children, José Dorna. She moved on and I think he didn't like that, according to Alicia. Would sometimes do things to spite La Joya, like the times he'd pick up the kids from the youth center without letting Logia know about it. He's just kind of being a pain.

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The jerk. Yes, a jerk, you know, trying to make her mad. Yeah. And it was definitely a no. It had to be some envy.

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And Bernadette thought the same.

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I believe that he became very jealous of Latoya after a while because her life was going somewhere and his kind wasn't right.

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I believe he was an inspiring actor that really wasn't getting many offers.

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And there was something else that bothered David and Alicia. The day after LA didn't show up to meet her younger sister at the bus station, Josie showed up at their house with the kids. And during that visit, they say not once did Josie ask about Latoya, no matter what was going on between them.

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That's the mother of his kids. Yes.

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And that's why I didn't understand it. Like what? You had that selfish of a person?

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Of course, Detective Eddie Brown heard all these stories about Jose, including a comment Jose had made to the Monrovia P.D. the second time they called in while the jail was still missing.

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Mr. Turner said, I'm going to stop answering any questions and you can talk to my lawyer.

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That's gonna make everybody sit up a little taller in the saddle.

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That's a red flag for us. Yes. Well, there was another side that Jose Tammy Devine was a journalist, an aspiring filmmaker who got to know Jose and La Joya.

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I remember seeing Latoya and José with their kids together. And I was like, oh, my goodness, I wish that, you know, I was cool, calm and collected like these guys are. There was kindness there.

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Jose respected Latoya said Tammy and Detective Brown knew that just because Jose had clammed up, that didn't mean he was a killer.

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We didn't zero in on him and we can't, you know, initially an investigation. Everybody is a suspect. We look at everything, you know and everybody.

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Tips started coming in to police, one from a local chiropractor who'd seen the news reports about La Joya, he told detectives he met La Joya and a friend of hers at a restaurant about a week earlier. Turns out that was the night Bernadette was out with La Joya. Detectives reviewed the restaurant's security cameras and there was the chiropractor he's seen talking with Ledger and later leaving the restaurant.

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Lovejoy and her friend leave a couple of minutes later. Don't look like anybody's following her and she doesn't look like she's having trouble with anybody on her way out of the restaurant or way to the car. Correct. So whatever happened on out in there? Correct.

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The chiropractor was one of the last people to see Lovejoy alive, but his story was corroborated by what detectives saw on the security cameras.

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He was nothing more than a helpful citizen. And then there was something Lovejoy had left behind, something in her own words.

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We locate her journals, her journals tell us a lot. We find out that there was a boyfriend she had had before and there was a new man she was falling for.

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And I remember reading that she had met somebody and that she was looking forward to seeing him again. Was it the man she had posted about on Facebook just days before she went missing? Detectives needed more and we do a warrant on her phone.

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We do get the return on her phone.

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Lovejoy's cell phone records showed that on the evening she was out with Bernadette, the last time Lovejoy was seen alive, she was texting with someone.

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And the last person to be in contact with Lovejoy was not only juror No. Coming up, investigators head back to the scene of a crime hoping to smoke out a suspect.

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I did that on purpose, that location, so that he would be uncomfortable and then they spring their trap.

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He's like, do you have a suspect? I said, yes. And he said, Who? And I said, You when? Dateline continues. In any modern day criminal investigation, a person's digital footprint can be as valuable as their actual fingerprints. Unfortunately, in this case, the Julia McCoy cell phone was nowhere to be found. It last pinged several miles away from her home. And in that area, there's a lot of dumpsters, there's a lot of dumpsters, never find the phone, never find the phone or the bedding or her purse, nothing.

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Detectives were able to obtain Lovejoy a cell phone records. They discovered the cell number that Logia last texted belonged not to her ex, Hosie Turner, and not to the new guy with the rooftop pool, but to Lovejoy. His friend Luther was the guy who helpfully driven by her apartment to check on her. Like Lovejoy, a Luthor owned a boutique, Brown and his partner found him there, and we are speaking with Mr Walls first name Luther, correct?

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Correct.

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He said they had been involved romantically, but now they were just friends. Correct? My experience is that when guys say that, what they mean is I wanted to be involved romantically and she wanted to be just friends.

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Yeah, that's probably that's what I, you know, out of that, too. But I didn't want to push that.

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Luther knew what was coming. And then I was going to probably go through text messages.

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And I knew that probably the last text messages she sent, Luther had kept the texts he'd received from La Joya and he shared them with Detective Brown. You get a good vibe of Luther.

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I did, you know, doing this job for a long time. You can tell generally when someone's lying. And he didn't seem to be lying. Not at all.

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Detectives came to believe Luther Walls had nothing to do with Lovejoy's murder. You can tell by his phone that he wasn't at her apartment. Correct.

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Instead, Luther helped detectives with an understanding of what was going on with La Joya just prior to her disappearance. Because Luther had heard some of the same stories. Lovejoy had told her mom and her friend Eva.

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She have expressed concerns that someone could be stalking her. And who was that? She never told me exactly who.

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Even without a name. Luther did know exactly who La Joya was talking about.

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She did tell me if something did do something to me, check her baby daddy.

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And that was Hosie Turner. She told me that he was abusive, like she didn't really go into details of the time he was abusive. I think it was more like a controlling relationship.

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Luther also told detectives that La Joya believed Jose had a locksmith make a key to her apartment while she wasn't there.

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I believe her sixth sense of fear was kicking in. This was a woman who knew she was in danger. She knew she was in danger. Yes, she knew. Just not in time. Correct. Which unfortunately, I've seen that occur a lot in my career.

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And perhaps this was about the time in the investigation when Jose Turner's sixth sense was kicking in because Jose picked up the phone and called Monrovia PD.

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The call was recorded.

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I want to be able to pick up something for the kids if if that's possible.

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Kids games and things he said that were still in Lovejoy's apartment.

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Monrovia PD told José to call the detectives, and when Brown's phone rang, he saw an opportunity.

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I want to get back clothes or somewhere, but that's not my problem. Yeah, but yeah. But we need to talk to you about your whatever happened to your ex? The baby's my baby's mom. I don't know. I don't have anything to say about that. Oh, you're not. You're not you're not concerned about it. I didn't say that the detective told Hosie he would be happy to meet with him. What about? I don't know, one 30 at the apartment apartment.

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I did that on purpose, that location, so that he would be uncomfortable.

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And so they met at the scene of the crime.

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So when you meet him there, how does he seem like a suspect?

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Detective Brown had a surprise for Jose. He would hand over the kids things, sure. But he wanted something in return.

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But I also was going to get a DNA swab from him, and I told him that and I showed him the paperwork, which was a search warrant.

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And here we are and here's our swab. So open your mouth. Exactly. Brown also had a question for Jose.

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I said, Jose, how come you haven't asked anything about Ligeria? You don't you don't want to know about the investigation or anything and. Oh, yes. Yeah.

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He said that's how you bring it up. I do. Yeah.

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He's like, well, do you have a suspect? And I said, yes. And he said, Who? And I said, you.

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They submitted Jose Turner's DNA to the lab and they waited while the Joya's family and friends mourned.

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It was very hard, very hard sitting there. It shouldn't have happened. We shouldn't have been at her funeral.

[00:33:45]

And at the funeral with Julia's kids was Hosie Turner to CNN.

[00:33:51]

There was disturbing just fact that like nothing, nothing happened. Like nothing. David and Alisha knew something had happened. They'd seen it with their own eyes. Coming up, an eerie conversation, it was like I was speaking with Latoya, quote, A single phone call cracked this case. That's the missing piece.

[00:34:15]

Yes.

[00:34:29]

Pasadena, California, April 2013, it was close to two a.m., David and Alicia were jolted awake, just heard some frantic banging, banging, it grew louder.

[00:34:43]

First we were thinking maybe it's the police and maybe somebody's trying to break in.

[00:34:48]

Someone was pounding on their front door. David got off to see who it was and they would just hear Uncle David. Yeah.

[00:34:56]

And I'm like, who is that? Remember the desperate woman at the start of our story? That was La Joya standing at her aunt and uncle's doorstep, half naked and terrified, admittedly seen the way she was dressed in crime.

[00:35:13]

I knew it had to do with him. Him meaning Hosie Turner, David pulled his knees inside as she wept.

[00:35:23]

I've never in my life seen her that way and for her to come the way she did, I mean, I have a wall is probably three feet tall in front of that apartment building and then it has to cast iron rods were points on a tip.

[00:35:36]

She jumped over that to get to my place to get away from him.

[00:35:40]

Well, Joyce said she and Josie were arguing when Josie suddenly turned violent.

[00:35:46]

She said, I just came out of the bathroom and he just flipped out.

[00:35:49]

She said Josie choked her and she found the strength to hit back.

[00:35:53]

Then he went down and as she ran out the door. In terror, Lovejoy ran to her aunt and uncle's home and romantically anyway, she never looked back. She dumped Osei, moved on with her life. At least that was the plan.

[00:36:13]

Two years later, Lovejoy was murdered and now her uncle couldn't understand how Hosie Turner was still a free man.

[00:36:23]

You know, he started Kevin down like this isn't going to get resolved and you need closure.

[00:36:29]

That's when Detective Brown heard from the crime lab. They tested the DNA found on Lovejoy's car and under her fingernails against the swab Brown had taken from Hosain. It was enough of a match to make an arrest. That's the missing piece.

[00:36:46]

Yes, jail tonight in Temple City, 47 year old Jose Roberto Turtur arrested this morning on suspicion of killing his ex-girlfriend, 31 year old La Joya McCoy.

[00:36:57]

Lovejoy's mom, Summer found it hard to accept her mom didn't want to believe it, of course, because that's the that's her grandkids father. No one wants to believe that, least of all a woman who came forward to say that long before LA Julia McCoy, she knew exactly what Jose Turner was capable of.

[00:37:21]

Jose was so good at pretending we're why we go in public. Everything is wonderful. His manner is respectful. We get home. He's a monster.

[00:37:34]

Her name was Adrian, Jose's ex-girlfriend from years ago. She came forward when she learned Jose had been arrested. Detective Brown recorded her interview.

[00:37:46]

He beat me so bad I ran out of the house. Nick, you see, he kept me naked. I had to stay naked that way. You don't go out of the house.

[00:37:56]

For Adrian, Lovejoy's story was like a bad memory.

[00:38:00]

I felt sick. I could be me and, you know, I could have met me.

[00:38:08]

It was like I was speaking with Latoya. The stories were that similar? Yes. In summer 2017, Josie went on trial for Latoya's murder.

[00:38:21]

When you take this to a jury, you want to be able to prove it beyond any possible doubt.

[00:38:26]

Veteran prosecutor Fernando Barretto said the evidence was overwhelming.

[00:38:30]

A blood soaked note found in Ledger's car in her own writing documenting Jose's stalking that read I get a flat tire after he says he's in my area.

[00:38:44]

Jose Turner's DNA at the scene of the crime.

[00:38:48]

Plus, the jury heard from Jose's former girlfriend, Adrian, whose own story echoed Le Joya's. And there was one more thing. Those items missing from La Joya's apartment.

[00:39:01]

Detectives found them in Jose's car along with this, a green notebook with notes.

[00:39:08]

In Jose's writing, they find almost a stream of conscious writing, a vent session on this one page. And it's. Says, you know, I'll have great pleasure tearing her apart. Jose's defense, the writing was fiction. He was, after all, an actor and playwright.

[00:39:29]

As for Jose's DNA at the crime scene, his attorney argued there was no way of knowing how and when it got there. Jurors didn't buy it after just eight hours of deliberation. They found Joseph Turner guilty of first degree murder. His sentence, 26 years to life.

[00:39:51]

I was heartbroken, yet very relieved that my sister got justice.

[00:39:59]

Looking back on the joy the story, there is one obvious fork in the legal road that night, she said. Jose choked her and she ran to her uncle's house. How is José not locked up that night?

[00:40:13]

She didn't call the police and she didn't want the police involved because she thinks that'll make it worse.

[00:40:19]

Yes, and she's not wrong. I have cases where the women call the police. They they agreed to prosecute and they end up being murdered. So what is the right way?

[00:40:32]

I wish I knew Ligeria did do her best to move on. She is acutely aware of the danger in front of her, but she just hoped that he wouldn't go that far. She hoped that he would not take that ultimate step and kill her.

[00:40:46]

It's crazy when all you have going for you is hoping. I don't disagree. I think that she started reaching out to people towards the end when his behavior was escalating.

[00:40:57]

In fact, detectives say her murder came just a few days before an appointment Lovejoy had made with a security company to have an alarm system installed at her apartment.

[00:41:10]

Today, Lovejoy, his aunt and uncle, have become parents all over again.

[00:41:15]

Lovejoy as two children came to live with them. We adopted them.

[00:41:21]

So they're our kids.

[00:41:23]

And how are they? They're doing well. I mean, you wonder what's going through your mind. David and Alisha say that when Lovejoy disappeared, Jose told the kids she had abandoned them. You've told them the truth about what happened to her. They ask in certain ways, and then when I tell them I won't hide anything from you, I'll tell you as much as I can. I mean, the oldest son, he told me my dad tricked us.

[00:41:50]

Huh? I say, yeah, he did.

[00:41:53]

Your dad didn't tell you the truth, but we will. Yes. Yes. The truth about a woman who never gave up on herself or the future she wanted. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt, thanks for joining us. I'm Trymaine Lee, host of Into America, a podcast from MSNBC. Join me as we go into the roots of inequality and economic injustice and racial injustice.

[00:42:27]

And then when you add health is a health injustice into what's at stake, people are going to be voting not for a person, but for stability and into what comes next into America, a podcast about who we are as Americans and who we want to become. New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

[00:42:45]

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