Missing Woman Seen in Los Angeles?

Friends of Mitrice Richardson, who vanished last month after being released from the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, say there have been sightings of her in Los Angeles.

They say witnesses saw her on several occasions in the South Central area of Los Angeles, but none called the L.A.P.D., which is spearheading the investigation into her disappearance.

Police have said that they believe Richardson is alive, but the last confirmed sighting of her was in the Monte Nido area near Calabasas the morning after her release.

She vanished after being released from Sheriff custody following her Malibu arrest on September 17.

The case has generated extra attention, with some of Richardson’s friends and family blaming the Sheriff’s Department for releasing her with no money, no car and no cell phone during the predawn hours. Authorities respond that she was an adult who was apparently not impaired, that they offered to let her stay at the station and had no further reason to keep her incarcerated.

The case is especially strange, because her past behavior is at odds with reports from that night.

Her family says Richardson was a straight-A graduate of Cal State Fullerton who had recently passed a test to become a substitute teacher. She was a finalist in the 2007 Miss Fullerton pageant and currently works as an executive assistant in a shipping company.

But on September 17, her behavior at Geoffrey’s Restaurant in Malibu was strange.

She began the evening alone at a table, attaching herself to a group of patrons as the evening progressed. Geoffrey’s owner, Jeff Peterson told the Times, “She seemed a little euphoric — a little odd. The people she joined seemed OK with it. When she said they were going to pay her tab for her and they weren’t — that’s when we realized we had a situation.”

Richardson “said she was from Mars and started speaking in a made-up language,” Peterson said his restaurant staff told him. “She did tell my valet at one point that she was here to avenge Michael Jackson’s death.”

Her disappearance prompted several large searches of the nearby area, focusing on Monte Nido, where searchers say there was a sighting of a woman fitting her description sleeping on a porch the next morning.

Anyone with information should call the LAPD Missing Persons at (877) 527-3247.