- 6 weeks ago
When a California teen disappears, the whole town feels on edge. As suspicion turns inward, her closest friends begin to wonder if the danger was beside them all along, hidden in the familiar faces of classmates with something dark to hide.
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00:00when the school year ends the fun and freedom of summer beckons but the
00:12disappearance of a teenager in a small town has all of her friends whispering
00:20did they allow evil to sneak into their lives and steal her away
00:35this is kind of the neighborhood where she grew up it's been about 30 years since seeing her house
00:56i've always wanted to drive over there but never quite knew if i was brave enough to see it
01:05yeah this is where she lived
01:13it felt so much bigger as like a kid you know yeah
01:23my anxiety level is super high definitely being back here um yeah
01:30i don't let myself remember good stuff it's too painful
01:34we all moved on and kind of bottled that up and then as adults we realized that you can only keep
01:40that bottled for so long because what happened to her it's so horrible
01:49my name is elise
01:52you know my name
02:04i had a row around a high school there was lots of clicks lots of lots of clicks it was almost like
02:15a movie that you would watch in the 90s
02:17you had the jocks who always wore their letterman jackets you you had the girls that were just so
02:25beautiful and they were cheerleaders and i would just look at them and just want to be one of them
02:30the skater kids were doing hacky sack and like there were just these grungy rockers that like listen
02:36to metal music then you had more of like the goth kids the baggy pants and like the crop tops and the
02:42chokers and then us who were just kind of like didn't really fit any of those norms
02:47the best friend group was for sure elise lynn kate and myself it was like the minute we all met each
02:55other it was like we found like our our family and i just think we all saw something in each other it
03:01just fit i think we were all very different we all brought something different to the table which
03:10kind of made it work i would say lynn she was more uh the rebellious one like she was always kind of
03:18trying to get us in trouble elise was definitely just the easygoing welcoming one the more free-spirited
03:27carmen was more like sheltered and just more like the good girl and kate she was spicy you know if i
03:36needed somebody to kind of say something for me kate was my girl hi we were definitely like a motley
03:43crew of people like that is the best way to describe it we would just kind of hang out and just gossip
03:51about you know what boys we liked and gossip about some of the girls at school oh my god it looked like
03:56we would go to lynn's house and we would hang out and you know we would dance play music
04:08so many memories of sleeping over at carmen's house at lynn's house and analise's house
04:13sleepovers at lynn's house were just a little bit more crazy she was like a little prankster
04:19we would wait till one girl would fall asleep and we would dip their hands in water and i have this
04:24like like memory of like elise waking up and i think we put chocolate on her face and it was
04:28like the maddest i've ever seen her oh i met you so i knew that the girls were special um and i always
04:35knew that moving forward i could see my future you know my kids can be like this is aunt kate this is
04:41aunt lynn this is annalise but it didn't end up that way in the summer of 95 everything changed
05:00my parents sent me to puerto rico to visit family so i was on a trip when my mom called me
05:04i remember her telling me that elise was missing
05:21it was july 22nd 1995 and
05:24it was saturday we were asleep and i woke up startled with like a shock wave that went through
05:37me that i can explain only a feeling of intense dread and i said out loud where is elise
05:45i woke up her sister was 13 i said go check on her and she went into her room and she had this bunk bed
05:51and uh she said oh she's not there i said check the top bunk she says no she's not there and i opened
05:56the front door and the words came out of my mouth she's gone
06:04we called the police and they said you can't call us till the morning you had 24 hours
06:09i understand what 24 hours is you know children leave and they come back home but this is different
06:15than that do your job and help me find my daughter
06:28and after 24 hours we called the police again i told them that before elise went missing we were all
06:37watching a tv program and a phone call came in at least picked it up it went on for a minute but
06:45she wasn't saying a whole lot and that was perplexing and then another phone call came
06:49that was like 10 seconds and she said like uh-huh uh-huh twice hung up then she said oh i'm tired and
06:57i want to go to bed and that was it it was not anything super worrisome at first
07:08the whispers were that she ran away she was mad at her parents and she ran away and i remember going
07:12up to carmen be like have you heard from her she's like no have you no and we're like that's weird
07:18and so we're like okay well she's gone where did she go who's she with when you're a you know a young
07:24teen in the early 90s you know there's not a lot of escape especially in a small town with not a lot
07:29of stuff to do you tend to make your own fun and you tend to make your own adventures and things like
07:34that elise she had a little rebellion side to her too right we all did we were hanging out with friends
07:40maybe drinking but everybody was doing it i remember sneaking out and walking to see if we
07:45can find a cute boy or going to steal candy i feel like we lived in this very small sheltered area
07:55like where nothing could touch us as teenagers it was all pretty normal for us if it was uh going down
08:02to the local creek to uh to hide under a bridge and maybe smoke a little grass with your friends you
08:07know so be it i actually met elise at middle school eighth grade we had pe together she was a sweetheart
08:22she was just the all-american girl we used to hang out under the bridge i haven't been here since high
08:31school it brings back a lot of memories good and bad memories
08:40this right here was a popular spot to ditch and hang out you'd have the potheads and the metalhead
08:48stoners down here just hanging out getting high and then some of us would actually even sit underneath
08:54the bridge preventing school administration or security coming down here finding who's not in class
09:00and who should be in class it was a depressing moment to find out when elise was missing we all just kind
09:12of shut down i was telling myself there's nothing wrong like she's fine she's going to come back she's
09:19going to tell us about her journey and like her wonderful stories and all her experiences that she had
09:24and then everything would just kind of go back to the way it was
09:32but that didn't happen the more time goes by um the more that you you definitely start
09:37to get the sense that something's not right
09:42napomo was such a is such a small community
09:46and you have a 15 year old that is very conservative very well respected she was really
09:54into church very religious and to have her show up missing horrified the whole town it horrified us
10:02after two three weeks have gone by we still didn't know where elise was the town was on edge and we
10:08were in lockdown we weren't allowed to go places imagine you're 14 your friend is missing yeah like
10:17we were scared everyone's asking everybody everything about elise where's elise where's elise
10:22and it's like yeah something could have happened to her i do remember walking home and kind of just
10:26like kind of looking over my shoulder a little bit and you hope you're trusting the right people
10:30it was definitely a scary time just because it was unknown it did not feel real because of where we
10:36grew up we were supposed to be safe but we weren't
10:50when elise went missing you know law enforcement didn't take it seriously they immediately thought
10:55she's a teenage runaway but things weren't adding up i don't think that she just would have left willy
11:01nilly because from you know what we perceived her family was great elise she was the oldest of four
11:19four she was the one of all four that would pose during pictures you know she'd go like this and
11:31she'd do little uh special little smiles and stuff hi she was an athlete she was a great student she made
11:44friends easily she didn't have a lot a lot of friends but she had really good close friends she was the
11:56normal young teenager looking to grow up and have a wonderful life but all that changed
12:03i frequently would report on the paler case after elise disappeared nobody knew if she'd been kidnapped
12:17if she'd run away like with any missing person cases especially in a small town there were a lot
12:22of rumors about what had happened i remember that there were sightings multiple sightings of her there
12:28was a sighting of her in los angeles she wanted to be an actress and somebody had seen her at her
12:33casting there were so many reports that they had seen elise here and they had seen elise there we learned that
12:40she had ran away from home and joined the circus there was a girl her age matched her description that
12:46was in this mobile home living with this older man doing meth and stuff a subcontractor that i've worked with he said
12:54i saw your daughter on the beach we had at least a hundred of those going on for me it was frustrating
13:04not to be able to know what was going on my parents kind of didn't really want me to know about it and
13:09the only thing that i could learn was from the media or from you know the rumors at school i know for
13:15for my parents they didn't want me to be scared and they didn't probably want to even deal with it
13:20as parents on their own so they were very very hush hush about about things and i do remember
13:26wanting to do something like should we drive around shouldn't we be looking and knocking on doors i had
13:32need to find her and i spent every day looking for her typical of these cases the parents they don't
13:39want to give up and oftentimes they'll feel like law enforcement isn't doing enough so they'll basically
13:45become detectives on their own they'll learn to be witnesses they'll scout out locations
13:52they'll just kind of do the legwork themselves from the moment their daughter vanished david and
13:57lazanne paler have been desperate for answers clinging to hope following every lead doing all they can
14:05to bring her home i had flyers on doors i had flyers on the outside of the buildings
14:11people called and all kinds of weird things and i pursued some of them but we were let down so
14:18much it became this limbo this numbness of just trudging along um trying to remain hopeful just to
14:27motivate yourself it's difficult to understand how you feel about your child being missing
14:37you're not thinking the negative you're thinking the hopeful she is gone somewhere or done something
14:50and she's coming home statistically most kids that go missing come back home but sometimes kids aren't
14:59runaways and when you deal with a search and rescue mission timing is everything in terms of getting a
15:07positive result by the time school started the rumors were all out where's the lease i had a lot of
15:18flyers at the school as a matter of fact somebody gave me a call and said we can't have these flyers
15:23all over the place and i said well i'll just keep putting them up if you want to take them down so you
15:28know i'm the father i'll do what i want to do i can't imagine how her parents felt that we just like
15:35went back to normal and we're just back in classes but where is she her seat's just empty and you're
15:41like okay this is weird what are we doing here i missed her a lot nobody had any answers it was like
15:49she just vanished you know we were scared no one was telling us anything so we didn't really know
15:55what what to do with that fear you get a sense like yeah something could have happened to her
16:00and one of the kids around me could be involved you have a little bit like suspicion like somebody
16:05must know something after talking with lynn and kate i felt like maybe because we were her friends
16:14that people were looking at us weird my name is lynn and i was one of elise paylor's best friends
16:24i haven't spent significant time in arroyo grande in 30 years it's uncomfortable to be in this space
16:34because for me there's still like a darkness that hovers over it
16:43i had a lot of shame and i had like fits of rage at times and i like wasn't the best person
16:53so i don't like to think about what really happened
17:03when a friend vanishes in a small town suspicion creeps in like fog and with high school teen drama
17:11at its most lethal elise's friends start to look at one another and wonder which one of them knows more
17:18than they're letting on
17:24i'm not showing my identity today because i'm still not comfortable talking about what happened
17:29at 13 i moved to arroyo grande from the san francisco bay area and i hated it
17:44there was a lot less to do a lot fewer people a lot more fields
17:49a lot more cows it kind of always smelled like broccoli and people were not very welcoming
17:54i felt like it was a place i could never fit in but then i met elise she was nice to me when nobody
18:03else was and so we became friends and people started being nice to me because i was friends with elise
18:09it was like she was my social currency to you know be an acceptable new person
18:15and then we created this circle of friends but conflict and drama was very common as it is for
18:23all teenage girls remember any of these oh my gosh why were the 1990s so big for like everyone who's cool is
18:36wearing a striped shirt in these pictures i think it's really telling though how everyone else's face
18:43is just like normal and then elise is like lit up huge smile
18:52i think we all feel a little bit of uh guilt a little bit about how things went down or how we
19:00did things or said things i remember lynn and elise sort of had a falling out i had told elise i
19:08wanted to break up with her like i wrote her this letter but i didn't want to be her best friend
19:12anymore and now carmen's my best friend i feel like i sort of messed that dynamic up between
19:22lynn and elise and i kind of jumped in and i stole lynn from elise and so i have a lot of guilt
19:30because maybe if i wasn't in the picture then it wouldn't happen
19:34i felt guilty that i i sort of broke a friendship between her and lynn which is why she sought out
19:44other friendships i wasn't like super privy to her life at that moment because she started hanging
19:52out with like angel and shannon elise met shannon at church and then her friend was angel
20:02it was the three of them together all the time shannon and angel kind of wore that hippie skater
20:08vibe they had like the big baggy pants and you know like the chokers it was like standard uniform in
20:13high school i guess i didn't know what was going on with those girls and her and what they were into or
20:18you know what they were doing outside of school so it was all just yeah confusing after she was missing
20:25i called angel's mom so angel came right away with shannon because they were her closest friends at
20:31that time but they didn't know anything
20:39but we found out they wrote letters to each other later when we got her letters i found out the
20:46girlfriends were warning the least about joe and jacob and that jacob was someone to be concerned about
20:58jacob and joe they didn't even register in my day-to-day life they were just kind of like
21:04metalhead guys that went to school with us i listened to the same bands that they were listening to
21:12a slayer megadeth all those 80 metal bands i remember like going through the radio station
21:17i'm like how can people listen to this i don't even know what they're saying they're just screaming
21:25i don't focus too much on lyrics i never uh thought about too much about that
21:31i was maybe warier of the metal music friend circles elise rode the bus with joe
21:38and joe actually really liked elise i remember he came to our door once it was really weird not when
21:44she was missing but before that and he said oh i'm missing a black cat have you seen it i said no
21:52i had a creepy feeling about him and then once he came by and he was watching them all on the
21:58trampoline just kind of lingering watching them it was weird i remember square dancing with joey and he
22:05just gave me like a weird feeling and like i just kind of remember him always like kind of hanging
22:12out into like jacob and trying to be like him or something i remember a lot of people like having
22:17a crush on jacob and thinking that joe was like his kind of sidekick i thought jacob was cute
22:26jacob wore wife beaters and had like a flannel and they were a necklace they were kind of like the bad
22:32kids but i don't remember thinking that they were dangerous
22:38i do remember some other classmates had darker more angsty personalities the thoughts start to
22:45creep into your head like did one of those people do something there were certain kids that you knew
22:51were were the trouble kids but at the same time it could be anyone so as we're sitting there trying
22:56to process elise being missing and could one of us be responsible for this and you have no
23:01idea where to look remember we're at a high school with thousands of kids and you hope you're trusting
23:05the right people just before summer break elise said to her dad i want to go study early at school
23:13so she got dropped off and then i guess some police found her off campus under a bridge with a boy named
23:21luke he supplied marijuana to the students at ro grande high school so we told that to the vice
23:28principal of the school and she got punishment she got five days off of school and when elise went back
23:35in the hallways someone was yelling narc narc which was very disturbing
23:54not knowing is obviously is worse than anything i mean this went on for like months
23:58what is happening where is this girl it was just like this bright sunshine
24:03in everybody's life that was just not there anymore so i shoved it down and tried not to think about
24:09it tried not to feel it at all as those months were trickling by i just stayed on the roller coaster
24:19of sinking into anxiety about it and then convincing myself it would be fine but i was wrong
24:27one morning when i woke up the phone was just ringing and ringing i heard one of my parents answer it
24:35and i had this like pit in my stomach and then my mom came in and told me it was elise she she had been
24:44found
24:55i'll never forget that evening we're coming back from a ski trip and we're coming down the street and you
25:04could see it in the distance there were lights and lots of activity in front of our house everybody
25:12was there there was a detective talking to us about elise and that they found her the police said
25:23we found her body and it's going to be on the 11 o'clock news 15 year old elise paler disappeared last
25:29july eight months later investigators found her slashed body in a eucalyptus grove barely a quarter
25:36mile from her home in the town of arroyo grande
25:43i remember seeing it on the television that it was confirmed
25:47it didn't feel real it was very surreal like being in a dream my heart was broken
25:52because she suffered
26:00and being so close to home
26:04i think i was in shock and i knew that at 15 is like nothing is ever going to feel the same again
26:14everybody was um a little bit yeah angsty because we didn't know exactly what happened
26:19we just knew that they had found her and she was not alive the case broke when a 17 year old
26:26teen named bruce casey led authorities to elise's body
26:32bruce casey we went to high school with i know he was a couple years older my brother knew him we knew
26:40each other from classes and things like that and i always found him to be a pretty nice guy
26:45bruce casey admitted that he had actually taken part in this murder
26:53when i heard that royce was responsible my blood got cold
26:58and he said he did it with two of his friends jacob de lachmet
27:04and joey fiorelli when i heard it was jacob and joey too i was so confused and i was in shock like
27:12what
27:20i always thought that their reputation was more of a stereotype
27:24where they were just like these potheads you know type guys that like listen to metal music
27:34they were kind of like the social outcast type guys
27:37i don't recall that elise had any like friendships with these guys
27:44but i wouldn't put it past her to be nice to them to say hey how are you doing
27:51i always remember thinking that it wasn't just like random person that killed her it was like
27:56boys that we knew and had classes with and interacted with and ate lunch with and
28:02and were around like i actually wish there was a word bigger than overwhelming to describe hearing
28:09that these boys were boys that i'd like seen on the bus and seen around school and were part of our
28:17community and daily lives and so they had to have seen like how great she was
28:21this is where me and elise went to arroyo grande high school all three boys royce joey and jacob all
28:38looked us in the eye walked past us in the hallways every day with no care in the world she was missing
28:45nobody knew where she was but they knew they all knew elise's mother described the teen as friendly
28:53and innocent she saw the good in people and was nice to everyone i think she was tricked because it
29:00didn't make any sense that she would go out with these weird kids from high school according to royce's
29:06confession the three boys basically convinced elise to come out of her house at night and go to a
29:13eucalyptus grove where they would smoke pot there was a phone booth that they used to call her
29:28the next step was to walk to the top of our driveway and that's when elise went up the driveway
29:34and they took her away
29:35that is surprising to me that she would sneak out to meet them i remember even at the time i was like
29:48that was weird that's weird maybe they lured her out with a promise that other girls were going to be
29:57there maybe her friends because elise wouldn't have just left with the boys just to smoke pot with them
30:05i think that they preyed upon her because they knew who she was as a person and and that she was
30:14trusting um and i i remember being angry because we found out what they did to her
30:22i knew that she had been stabbed but i didn't know a lot of the ins and outs what happened
30:37i just didn't want to hear about it i didn't want people to talk about it to me
30:40i don't want to picture that at all because it was just too horrific
30:44a victim of rape torture murder all part of a satanic ritual prosecutors go on to say in these
30:52papers that paler was killed to commit an ultimate sin against god
30:58in the confession royce casey was talking about having sold their soul to the devil
31:08and their objective here on earth is to kill 666 blue-eyed virgins as it sacrifices satan
31:26in order to earn a ticket to hell
31:31i knew something bad happened to her i did not know like this whole strange twisted scenario is
31:41what happened that i could have never fathomed seeing it on the news was very surreal when the
31:47story came out it was a national story uh something because of the sensational allegations one of their
31:53plans was to take her to some type of an altar and sacrifice her and he said that that was in his words
31:59quote straight out of the lyrics of slayer one thing that connected the three boys is that they
32:03were in a band called hatred and hatred is sort of modeled after slayer which was a death metal band
32:13they had lyrics that dealt with necrophilia murdering virgins satan and they kind of got the idea that
32:21somehow if they could sacrifice a virgin that the devil would make them better guitarists and it would
32:28help their band so they could be more like a slayer i guess they were like openly brazen about
32:34wanting to do this type of deed and yet nobody said anything they took her to a place in the woods
32:42where a series of trees fell
32:48and took the shape of a pentagram and that's where they built their altar
32:54and that's where they did the sacrifice elise paler was killed in a sadistic ritual
33:02that took place in this eucalyptus grove
33:13the feeling i get being out here is a dark feeling i have goosebumps right now
33:18my palms are sweaty i don't like it
33:24i'm just thinking about elise
33:29and what happened to her out here these eucalyptus trees that you see all around me
33:35are everywhere and that's all that there is there's not even no street lights
33:40it's complete darkness out here nobody was going to hear her scream
33:44you know they had all the silence in the world out here
33:49my heart hurts for what she was going through i can't i can't even bear to imagine it
33:55it opened my eyes that like there's some evil in people for sure
34:02and then we heard they weren't done
34:06they wanted to sacrifice 666 blonde-haired blue-eyed virgins and apparently they had kicked out the next
34:13victim the only thing more terrifying than a killer
34:19is a killer with a plan and these twisted teens weren't just chasing violence they were chasing infamy
34:30miss paler was selected as a virgin sacrifice to glorify satan
34:36i wish a lot of things had been different
34:45i think it's a good thing royce confessed when he did because there were some rumors out there that
34:50there could have been another girl
34:53they had picked out the next one in that eight and a half months
34:57and apparently the next victim lived behind the mesa view market
35:03but royce casey his parents were taking him to church and he said i can't do this but if i don't
35:10do this they'll kill me and he goes in there and he talks to this pastor and he told him the whole
35:16story and so that's when uh royce he turned himself in
35:20i guess royce found jesus found his religion and uh couldn't live with the guilt of what he had done
35:27the murder charges and aggravating circumstances could mean the suspects ages 15 16 and 17
35:34will be tried as adults hearings next month will determine that for sure
35:42i don't think that anybody could understand what we went through right we lost a best friend
35:46and somebody who was an amazing person i know for me i packed it all away and i just
35:54i never thought about it again so like bringing it up now it's it's been difficult and i felt like
35:59after all that we kind of just had to move on yeah and that was that was difficult because they
36:05didn't know how to deal with all those things yeah and i i think like everything changed not that just
36:10like elise passed away or she was in a car accident or something like that that would have been
36:14traumatic on its own so it wasn't like we just lost elise we lost her to the most horrific thing
36:21i certainly numbed myself for years yeah it just felt so dark like to have that person proximity to
36:30darkness yeah right such a heinous thing happened to the absolute kindness you just feel empty
36:44it's okay we ended up in a courtroom thinking that we were going to get started on a trial and that
36:53was not the case the case never went to trial the three boys pled no contest and they each got life
37:01sentences with the possibility of parole they just did what they wanted and took away the the worst
37:08chances other than first-degree murder they took them away which would have kept them never to get out
37:13i was very upset about that because the prosecuting attorney said we're going to go to trial david and
37:18you're going to find closure you're going to get all the answers to all the questions that you have
37:24but no that was the end of it it was over goodbye
37:29the police deserves so much more than the justice that she got i think they should have got the death
37:47penalty here we go
38:06today is the next parole hearing for royce casey this is hearing number eleven
38:14you know elise died 30 years ago and here i am 30 years later in parole hearings
38:26royce casey was saying that he's sorry but sorry means please let me out of prison you know
38:36i'm trying to find closure but there isn't any closure in this matter you know she's gone but i'm
38:47continuing to interfere because he should not get out you know i'm elise's protector i protect her and i
38:57wasn't able to protect her that night and so i'm going to tell royce casey right to his face what happened that night was evil
39:14this is the last thing i'm going to tell royce casey four simple words people use them every day
39:21goodbye and good luck
39:27i'm going to tell royce casey
39:33her life was a beautiful life it was a full life for 15 years
39:38and she made such an impact and will continue to make an impact on the friends that she had
39:48she was important to us and she existed and she was a beautiful person and i want people to remember who
39:54she was
40:00with the trauma we all went through with that we kind of went our separate ways and so yeah it's been like
40:0430 years like i was like nervous like is this gonna be awkward and not at all like didn't miss a beat
40:08it's like we've always been friends so i'm yeah i'm super grateful to be able to kind of reconnect with
40:14you guys yeah being able to talk with you guys and talk about all the good things and laugh about all
40:20the silly things and how funny and quirky she was i think that we'll be able to heal from it yes so this
40:27is a book of poems from when we were in high school and this particular poem i sent this to elise's mom
40:33when she was missing and a section that stands out to me says i looked out at my yard where we made
40:39up our little teapot dance i remember how close you were i want another chance
40:49i wish you'd come back i just want to see your face because friends will come and go but you i can't
40:56replace
41:11on the next a killer among friends when you're 13 your friends are everything if that grass can talk
41:19we would be in big trouble but if you aren't careful you'll pick the wrong friends marianne started
41:24to distance herself and turn your world upside down i was hanging out with a murderer and i didn't even
41:29know it
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