The Kristal Reisinger Case - Episode 1 (Revisited)
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Up and Vanished in the Midnight Sun is released every Friday and brought to you absolutely free. But for ad-free listening, exclusive bonuses, and early access starting next week, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus.com or on Apple Podcasts. I'm on the top of a mountain. It's dark, really dark actually.

and I can barely make out the faces of people talking. - Roy. - Nice to meet you. - You look familiar. - Do I? - You been here before? - I have. - Okay, I've been here a long time. - Okay, nice to meet you. - Yeah, welcome.

Where are you from? Atlanta. Oh, you came out just for this drum circle, right? Yeah, pretty much. I have an instrument, it's made out of steel with that round thing on there. It's called the tongue drum. The guy here makes it, there are ends of propane tanks and he welds them together and there's little cut slits that do... This night is still vivid in my mind. The kind of dark where the edges of the world disappear.

The kind of dark where you question everything. I was here standing in the middle of a drum circle, recording a podcast. But what if I wasn't? What if I was actually part of something bigger? Something unknown? Because standing in that moment, surrounded by strangers, I felt like I was on the edge of something. Something unsettling. If you stepped too far away from the fire, you'd vanish into the black. It was my first real investigative trip with a full team.

Mike, Meredith, Rob, and my brother Mason were all there. I remember the way they looked at me. Like, what the hell is this? What has he gotten me into? And honestly, I wasn't sure either. But I leaned into it. I walked up to a random guy playing a tin drum, and just held my microphone next to him. And he kept playing. That was it. We were in.

But my mind wasn't on the music. It was scanning the crowd, looking at every face. And even though I was trying to act chill, I had twisting knots in my stomach with only one question rattling around in my brain. Was the person responsible for Crystal Risinger's disappearance standing right here with us? From Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this is Up and Vanished. I'm your host, Payne Lindsey.

Long before this land was called America, Native people danced in a circle around the drum for celebration, fellowship, renewal, and healing. When I started Up and Vanished, I was chasing the truth.

Now I find myself chasing something else too: understanding. The passage of time changes how you see things, how you see people, and how you see yourself. Back then, just a guy with a microphone, searching for answers. And now, I understand that some questions never really go away. They haunt the places where they were left behind. My journey into investigating the disappearance of Crystal Ann Reisinger, who went missing in July of 2016,

began in Hollywood, California at a hotel downtown. We met in an awkward, brightly lit hotel conference room with what seemed like the biggest table on earth. Sitting across from me was Crystal's ex-boyfriend Eli and their five-year-old daughter Akasha. The setting was already strange and uncomfortable for everyone, but I was ready to dive in once again.

just like I had done in Tara Grinstead's case. My name is Elijah Gana. I'm an ex-boyfriend of Crystal, father of our daughter. And what's your name, Akasha? Say it right here. Right here near the mic. Say your name. My name is Akasha. How old are you, Akasha? Five. Well, you're pretty big.

I had a good buddy of mine. We've been friends for years. He had a friend that he wanted to introduce me to. It was like a friend of a friend introduction kind of a thing. And when we met, it was kind of like fireworks immediately. It was one of those things where we just kind of fell in love really fast. The relationship moved really fast. It seemed like it was just fast forward to instant relationship kind of a thing. And we moved in together and

It was just, yeah, just an awesome, wonderful experience. My first impression was like, where were you my whole life? She was very sweet, very intelligent, very deep thinker, covered in tattoos, piercings, different looking, kind of a wild looking person. My type of girl. Eli had met Crystal in Denver and they fell in love almost instantly.

At first, things were great. They moved in together. Crystal gave birth to their daughter, Akasha. But after a few years, Crystal expressed to Eli that she was ready for a big change in her life. She really wanted to get out of the city. She was always on a spiritual journey. She was always on a quest, always trying to go deeper and deeper into things.

According to Eli, Crystal was always on some sort of spiritual quest, and she found herself drawn to a tiny town in south-central Colorado called Crestone. She went to Crestone, Colorado, which is known to be a big spiritual gathering place. She believed Crestone was just energetically just a great place to channel and be and

the energies there were amplified, the Earth's natural energies. She was very sensitive to a lot of things, and so she was really sensitive to the Earth, the rocks, plants, people, animals. It didn't matter. It was just real sensitive to energies and stuff. So she felt like that was a great place to align her energies with the Earth's energies. It's just such a tiny, isolated place. It's way out in the mountains.

Even though Crystal had moved nearly four hours away from Denver, she kept in touch with Eli and her daughter Akasha daily. I mean, she did not miss more than a day at the most without keeping in touch. Crystal was enjoying Crestone. She was happy there. And Eli supported this. It had always been in Crystal's nature to want to know more about the world around her, to find her purpose. And for the first time, she seemed to have found her place.

Crystal had this keen sense of the world's energy around her and was always seeking a higher level of understanding. But that wasn't the only unique thing about her. Well, I got to include this. So Crystal was pretty psychic. She was kind of a clairvoyant. She would know things or had premonitions of things and it would always happen. One time she called me up and she had a really bad premonition that something bad was going to happen to both me and her.

It was going to be something violent and something that we may not survive. She couldn't tell me exactly what it was going to be, but it was going to happen soon, within a few days. It was something that was unavoidable. It was something that couldn't be changed, is what she said. I knew not to take it lightly coming from her. Two days later, I was on my way home from work, and I have no memory of the events, but I just remember waking up in the hospital.

They were working on my face. I had been stabbed in the face, beaten, brutally beaten. All the bones in my face were pretty much broken, blown out, orbital sockets and everything. He'd been attacked by a stranger and nearly beaten to death. But from there, things took an even darker turn. So she came down and took care of me immediately from Crestone until I could take care of myself. And then two days after she got back to Crestone, she disappeared. No. No.

That was the last I seen of her. After a couple of days of not hearing from her and I was calling her and no reply, I definitely had a bad feeling. I got a hold of the police and they said that someone had already filed a missing persons report and it was her landlord. So I got a hold of her landlord and immediately things didn't sound good. She said it wasn't like her not to come home. Nobody knew where she was. The police were trying to steer it one way, like she killed herself, but I knew there was no way.

Crystal had vanished without a trace.

Two years later, Eli still has no answers, and it's changed him as a person. I'm just a hole. Like something just so big and profound in my life is gone. I'm so incomplete. If it wasn't for our daughter, she has just been the healer, just like Crystal said this whole time. She's kept me strong. She's healing me. I just feel like I can't imagine where I would be without her.

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At this time, we'd like to ask our flight attendants to please take their seats for landing. Next, I was off to Denver, Colorado to meet with Rodney, the father figure in Crystal's life and the family that raised her. Good to see you. Thank you for having us over. We met Rodney at his house. With me was one of our producers, Meredith. And Rodney introduced us to his wife, Debbie. You can generally tell a lot of people by their kids.

That's what I've found. Have you met Kasia? Unbelievable little girl. And she's indicative of Crystal. She's got that sparkly, inquisitive, that just love you to death. That is Crystal. I feel like I failed her. We lost a son years back to suicide, and I never wanted to feel that again.

And this is bringing all that back. What I should have said or what I should have done or, you know, I lay awake at nights thinking about what I should have done or should have said or... You really start dissecting just about every two minutes of the past 15 years. And it's amazing the things I remember and the things I don't remember. She used to be in here.

She had this whole downstairs to herself for a couple of years. The bed was right here. There was a nightstand over here. And mascara all over the floor. It just, it really hurts. I can't explain it any better than that. You know, I just, you know, when I'm talking about the mascara on the floor and all that stuff, you start thinking back in the past.

And you start thinking about the really stupid crap that you get upset about, that in hindsight is really what it is, just crap. It's part of living and everything else. I failed to protect. I failed to be able to help. I want people to keep saying, you know, you shouldn't live in the past and everything else. But, you know, it warms my heart that you're even considering this.

I hope we can find Crystal before I die. Crystal was just a wonderful lost soul, so to speak. But she kept going forward. She lived with us for a number of years. When she was 15 and a half, she met our son. I asked him about Crystal's upbringing and how he became the father figure in her life. She's from Arizona and she was awarded the court.

They sent her up here to live with an aunt. Evidently, the aunt was off the wall, so she didn't really have a place to stay. So there started our saga. We finished our basement and we let her stay in a room down there. And then over the years, you know, we've helped her get into college and moved her. And it was just like having another child. She had an incredible ability to keep going.

She really, really wanted to succeed at something. And some, excuse my French, some fucking piece of shit took that away from her. Since Crystal went missing, Rodney's been doing some investigating of his own. There is a lot of inconsistencies in the actual last time that she was seen. For some reason, the 13th is the one that sticks with me. July 13th of 2016.

When she was first reported missing, Rodney drove down to the town of Crestone and met with her police department. They were telling me at that point she was a wild partier and having these noisy parties in her apartment. If she was having such wild parties, the apartment would reflect that. And it did not in any way, shape, or form reflect that. Crystal lived in a small apartment by herself in the center of town.

Rodney canvassed the area himself, along with the police. The day or so before she disappeared, she had bought all her normal health foods, veggie burgers, her almond milk, her organic vegetables. They have a record of her using her food stamp card. As far as when she bought the stuff, I think it was on the 12th or the 11th of July, just a couple days before she went missing.

She stuck to making sure she had contact with Kasha. You know, if that's an indication of a person that's completely off the rails and going south, nah, I don't buy it. That's a crock of shit that the police and a few people in that town are spreading around. Rodney took her in, let her live in the basement in the house, made sure she got to school, gave her money for clothes and fed her. This is Chris Halsney.

He's an investigative reporter from Fox News in Denver. And he's the only TV reporter to ever cover Crystal's story. He just saw a need. He saw this poor girl and no way to survive without just living on the street. And he took her in. What a kind-hearted guy. This is the file of different things that we got out of her apartment. I guess you could go through it and see if there's anything that's even of interest.

When she went missing, he was the first one to get in his truck and drive five hours and start handing out these flyers because he had always taken care of her. This is from Cresto. Yes, this was in her apartment. While at Rodney's house in Denver, he gave our producer Meredith and I a box of Crystal's belongings from her apartment in Cresto.

It was full of mostly pictures dating back to when she was a young child. There were also tons of documents, bills and receipts, all kinds of things. Rodney encouraged us to go through it ourselves to see if there was anything helpful. And there are things in here that we didn't know about, you know, classes she had taken. It's a little bit of a glimpse into her life. She always tried to move forward and always was able to survive.

And one of the things that always struck me was that she just wanted to be a good person. After two years of searching for Crystal, and still no answers, Rodney wants as many people as possible to hear her story. I don't know if this is a tipping point, but there comes a point where it's like, man, as you guys start making your presence known in Fox News, Chris...

Chris said that he's going to push more. Crystal Ann Risinger dropped off the face of the earth last July. She was living in Crestone, a town of less than 1,000 people in south central Colorado, not far from the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Investigator reporter Chris Halsney traced Risinger's final days to discover it is unlikely she simply walked away.

Only 3x3 blocks long, Crestone at first glance is just another sleepy, laid-back hippie town. The surrounding mountains and sand dunes hold a raw, peaceful beauty. But the nearby hills may also be hiding some very dark secrets. Considered sacred ground by the Navajo, this place has lately been attracting truth seekers of a worldwide New Age religious movement.

Crystal Reisinger was one of those drawn to Crestone's soul. I've long been reporting cold case crimes. We'd been running a series of reports called Death on a Train. This friend of Crystal's had seen that series of reports and she called Terry and said, I saw what you could do for this other woman. Can you help Crystal?

The tiny town of Crestone is full of big rumors about what happened to Crystal. So the Fox 31 problem solvers came here to figure out fact from fiction. One thing most people agree on is that this is the last place she was seen. It's called a drum circle. She was seen at what they call a drum circle. It's part party, part religious experience. There's a full moon. Hundreds of people from the area around Crestone on the full moon go out of town to this park.

and they start this huge bonfire. And they sing and they dance and they do drugs and they drink. It means something different to a lot of different people. Native Americans would be offended that it became a party, but that's just what it's morphed into in Crestone. So watch County Sheriff's deputies say they believe someone who went to the Drum Circle Full Moon ceremony knows exactly what happened later that night.

We couldn't find anything substantial that she was seen after the drum circle. I asked Crystal's former boyfriend Eli about drum circles too. He'd been to some. It's just a party out in the woods. It just goes on all night. They just play their drums pretty much all night and there's a lot of drinking and drug use going on. Apparently there was this one guy that's seen her walking off alone into the forest. Other people are putting her at the drum circle.

It's either walking towards the drum circle or walking just off into the woods. Chris Halsney had spent several days in Crestone, developing his new story on Crystal. I asked him to describe the place. It's not much. It's just a few blocks of a couple little hotel, little restaurant, deli, couple little grocery stores, a liquor store. It's not much of a town. The population of the place really is just outside of town.

This group had given away free land to all sorts of religious sects to set up houses and housing, churches, temples just outside of town. There's a lot of little roads and electricity running out to these places, but they're very private. That's where most of the people are, is just out of town in these religious areas. It's quiet. No one's going to bother you in Crestone. If you leave people alone, they'll leave you alone.

It's the tale of two worlds there. There's 143 people that are officially registered to live in Crestone, and their income is very low, poverty level low. You get outside of town into the county, there are some really nice homes at high income. There's definitely two sets of people there. Crystal's ex-boyfriend Eli had gone down to Crestone with Rodney to search for her.

but he didn't learn much at all. Well, local people don't like to give up too much information if you're an outsider and they're just like, if you can imagine just like a really super tight knit community where everyone knows each other for generations and they don't like outsiders much even though there's a lot of outsiders coming in through the town that kind of resent them. They're distrustful. She fit in there and she knew it. That's why she wasn't going to come back to Denver. She fit in.

And I don't think she wanted to leave there. I think she just found her place. And I don't think any of her friends or family thinks she wanted to leave. It's heartbreaking to see all the life in her eyes at that young age.

- Happy birthday dear Akasha. Happy birthday to you. - Make a wish. - Yay! - Yay, Kashi! - Ready? - Kashi, go, go. - Do it, mama. - Yay, Kashi! - Running around, you know, excited about life.

And when you sit down and just have a quiet moment with her, she knows exactly why you're asking the questions. And it's because she knows her mother's gone. Whenever I see a missing poster, I think maybe there's still a chance. She was a little flaky. If she found just the right guy and ran off and wanted to disappear...

that she's in Mexico or Argentina or Costa Rica. Maybe she's in a cult somewhere and she's just fallen off the face of the earth and doesn't want anybody to find her. At least she'd be alive. At least someday maybe she could come back to the realization her daughter's here and there's people that love her and have been looking for her. For that little girl to have an answer. You paint such an interesting picture of this town, Crestone. It's a tale of two worlds.

Well, what we found is that it's really a peaceful meditative place and thousands of new age religious seekers from all over the world have come there. But, you know, there's a real dark side there. The drug culture is strong and a very thin police force. Maybe it was a religious thing for her, but more she was more Mother Earth. She was more trying to connect to this planet.

Because she'd done that before, for quite a while, I think police and neighbors thought, she's going to turn back up. She's going to come back. She just went on one of these journeys. I spent quite a bit of time in Denver, digging into Crystal's past and meeting some of her family. But it was clear that if anyone knew what happened to her, they weren't here. They were in Crestone. Before I made the trip there myself, I spoke to Crystal's father, Rodney, one more time. They're just something different.

really, really strange about this whole deal. You know, we've been down there from time to time. I call the sheriff, I call a deputy, and very rarely does he get back to me. They're undermanned and underfunded and I don't know. I want to trust them.

But boy, I tell you, things are starting to chip away here for one reason or another. I don't know if it's, you know, if it goes back to their undermanned, underfunded and overworked and, you know, and everything else, because there's only like six of them in that whole county. So Crestone alone, I think, keeps them busy. Boy, it's easy to get lost up in all this. You know, I find myself going different directions all the time.

And I met with Amy, Rodney's daughter, and Crystal's sister. So are you spiritual at all? Spiritual, sure. But you're not, like, meditating? Yeah, so you'll definitely be walking in as a total weirdo. Amy was with her husband, Alex, also a good friend of Crystal's. I asked her husband Alex about my safety in Crestone, since he'd been there several times himself. Your safety? Ha ha. Ha ha.

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There's still hope. I think it takes one brave soul who lives in Crestone, who's on the fringe of something a little seedy, to have the courage and the heart to step forward and let the authorities know what they know. It is old Navajo country, and they have left it pristine and rough and unowned for a reason, just to leave its beauty.

But at the same time, you don't just stumble across things out there. You stay on the trail. The minute you drive into town and buy a soda at the deli, just about everybody knows you're there. And when you ask the first question about Crystal, 10 more people know you're there. In another hour, 100 people know you're there. I've got the feeling people didn't like me there asking questions. Starting route to Crestone. Continue on I-70 West.

Now, years later, I look back at that moment and realize I wasn't just walking into a town. I was stepping into a reality I hadn't fully grasped yet. The weight of a disappearance that transpired in a world so far removed from mine. I was searching for Crystal, but by the time I had left, I realized I was searching for something else too. An understanding of the town, the people, and the fine line between hope and truth. This was all happening less than a year from Tara Grinstead's case.

It was time for me to either buckle down and dive in deeper or just not do this. But I jumped in fully, leaning into my gut once again. Sunshine beating on the good times. Moonlight raising from the grave. String band playing more of that honky tonks. Pretty young thing going dancing in the rain. Head darned, sleeping on the blacktop.

♪ Hey darlin' runnin' through the trees honey ♪ ♪ Hey darlin' even for the next time ♪ ♪ Lesson my sense catches up with me ♪ What I didn't anticipate back then, or what I couldn't anticipate, was just how bizarre Crestone was. The strange, almost surreal mix of people I met. These moments that felt almost otherworldly. And the confrontations with people I would confidently later call evil.

If you start using him as words as credibility in any of your podcasts, your own self will all fade away quicker than we can take the stage down. Do what you want. Just the warnings there. Do what you want, though, man. Paying lindsay to this, paying lindsay to that, paying lindsay to this, paying lindsay to that. I had every available resource to leave. Okay? I don't run. You know why? Because if I ever do, that's called the head start.

Some say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. That's right, girl. Give me a call. I saw him on your podcast, Lindsay. It's my new dating app. Baby, baby, it's me. It's me, darling. You know I wouldn't hurt nobody. It's me. Anyways, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, right. 828-202. As long as you're 17 to 21, you're good. I'm not that much of a creep, but I'm 23 in the dark.

So listen here girls, you tired of listening to this man's podcast? Tune in at channel .05%er. I'm not a nomad, I just know I'm mad. Maybe your female podcasters will take sympathy on that and find that sexy as well. The point is this, it's a 3 or 4 or 5 year missing persons case with this much involvement and interest.

I can only imagine how fucking pissed the Department of Justice is that they likely gonna fucking do it themselves and fucking throw her in someone's yard. I'm glad I'm not there and I don't have a yard here. It seems like some shit used to keep quiet, sir. Like, maybe some, like, um... No, wait a second. Did I make any sense? Any sense, Amelia Teacher? The bitch probably in WITSEC.

Why else I got reports of feds telling people to shut the fuck up about it? Why else would feds be telling people to stay quiet about that little theory about her being in with sick?

Cause I think she probably ran off on me or something. I don't know what the fuck happened there for me to think about. I'm not allowed to think about that kind of stuff. Cause I'm one of them dudes that's called smart and clever and shit. I just thought I was drunk, but the room's really been spinning. Am I on a fucking ride? What is this shit, dude? You're gonna have to pay me to get off of it. No, now I'm off of it. You're gonna have to pay me. Better idea. Let's earn off of this. Since my main focus isn't money. It's not in clearing my name.

I've covered a lot of cases, been to a lot of places, but there is nowhere on Earth that I've ever been that's quite like Cresta. Over the years, this case has stayed with me in ways I never expected. Of all the cases I've ever investigated, none have continued to unfold post-season quite like this one. The story didn't stop when the season ended. It kept going, pulling me back into its orbit over and over again.

Since 2018, I've traveled to Colorado at least 10 times or more just for Crystal's case. And in that time, I've had conversations that still haunt me. Late night phone calls with a man named Catfish, whose words lingered long after I hung up. Meetings with people who held pieces to the puzzle but were too afraid to speak about it. And through it all, I've stayed in contact with law enforcement

something very special in this case. I've met with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation on record, multiple times over the span of three years, and as recently as last week. Crystal's disappearance is not a cold case. It's actually far from it. This is not forgotten. Crystal is not forgotten. And my own quest for the truth has been on my mind since 2018.

And I want you to know that justice is closer than it's ever been before. So here's what's next. This Friday, we're going to refresh you on everything that happened in Up and Vantage Season 2. The people, the timeline, the details. There's a lot you need to know and remember. We'll lay it all out for you in a clean way so that we can pick up exactly where we left off. Because what happens next, you won't want to miss it. I'm excited to finally share with you what we've learned.

And I think for the first time, I can say with confidence, we are closer to the truth than ever before. So stay tuned this Friday as we continue Crystal's story. Up and Vanished is an investigative podcast told weekly. Produced for Tenderfoot TV by Payne Lindsay, Mike Rooney, and me, Meredith Stedman. With new episodes every Monday. Executive Producers Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright.

Additional production by Resonate Recordings, as well as Mason Lindsay, Rob Ricotta, and Christina Dana. Our intern is Hallie Bidal. Original score by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our theme song is Ophelia, performed by Ezra Rose. Our cover art is by Trevor Eiler. Special thanks to the team at Cadence 13. Visit us on social media via at Up and Vanished, or you can visit our website, upandvanished.com, where you can join in on our discussion board.

If you're enjoying Up and Vanished, tell a friend, family member, or co-worker about it. And don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening. Believe me, if I started murdering people, there'd be none of you left.

True crime has always captivated us. But what if there's more to these stories than what we're told? The headlines, the verdicts, the familiar narratives. What if that's just the beginning? I created Truer Crime to dig deeper, to uncover the stories that go beyond the surface. We're diving into mysteries you think you know. The Manson murders, Jonestown, the assassination of Dr. King, and the ones you've never heard.

They would have thought he was the sweetest thing in the world because he portrayed that. He portrayed the happy family. He haunts me. He's with me every day. We were robbed, all of us. If it takes me 20 years and I can live that long, I'll be working on this case. We're not just telling stories. We're uncovering hidden truths. Truer Crime is available now. Listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.