Shownotes Transcript
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Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash SparkCashPlus. Terms apply. How you doing tonight, Aaron? I'm doing just fine, Justin. How are you feeling? I'm doing good.
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So Aaron, tonight's case is one that has been recommended, suggested to us a lot. It's one that I have strong emotions about, but no strong opinions. I'd put it that way. It's a sad case, regardless of how you feel about it. So what are we talking about tonight?
Tonight we're talking about the October 17th, 2021 disappearance of 39-year-old Heidi Plank in Los Angeles, California.
Heidi Plank was born April 4th, 1983. She was originally from Buffalo, New York. She moved to the West Coast in 2001 and attended the California State University in Los Angeles. In 2008, Heidi married Jim Wayne, a hairstylist from Beverly Hills. Heidi and Jim divorced about four years later after their son, Bond, was born. Bond was 10 years old
at the time of this incident. Heidi and Jim had been divorced for about nine years at the time of her disappearance. The relationship was described after the divorce mostly amicable. It seems that they were very supportive of each other. Jim was a really supportive ex-husband and father. So this is a very interesting scenario where you have two
two people that have separated. They get along. He seems to be very supportive. And then something disastrous happens. Since 2016, Heidi worked at an investment advisory company called Camden Capital Partners LLC.
And it was an investment advisory firm. They handled wealth management and legacy planning for high net worth individuals. Her boss was Jason Sugarman. He was a managing partner at this Camden Capital Group. He's also the son-in-law of Peter Guber, who owns the Dodgers, Golden State Warriors, and LAFC, also the founder of Mandalay Entertainment. Sugarman is also a minority owner of LAFC.
Now, Heidi went from being Jason Sugarman's assistant to a financial controller who oversaw the accounting employees. According to Heidi's close friend, Natalie John, she was always answering calls and having to do things for her boss.
Yeah, it said that she ran errands for him, picked up his children, collected money for him. She had a bigger role in the company handling the finances and taxes. So I guess you could almost say she's the CFO and the COO of the company. She's doing a lot, but she's also doing those little things as well.
So, Jim Wayne, though, her ex-husband, told Dateline that he didn't think it was possible for Heidi to be a controller because she had no training for that role and was not a CPA. And according to Jim, she was extremely worried and I think, quite frankly, scared that she had so much on her plate at work. And when I say that, I'll be a little bit more specific. She was extremely worried about her name on the dotted line for the person for service of process with internal revenue.
Something goes wrong. Something's mishandled. It's her neck on the line, right? Yeah. So we can get into that later, but essentially some stuff happens at this company.
So we can jump to her disappearance. This is wild, Aaron. I'm sorry, I'm going to break character here for a second. This is one of the weirdest disappearances I think we've covered. I'm torn on how I feel about it. I've been torn on how I've felt about this case since I've heard about it in the beginning. I'm just going to go ahead and give my opinion there is, depending on the day, I will feel differently about this case. And I'm
Heidi's disappearance is one of those that is so out there that you couldn't script this. So what we know is that Heidi's mother, Suzanne Smeeter, had talked to her on October 15th, 2021. She was expecting Heidi to return to Buffalo, New York to spend Thanksgiving with her. Heidi was also planning to attend a class reunion and travel with a friend.
Now, Suzanne was asked if Heidi mentioned whether she was dating anyone, and she replied, she mentioned she had dated somebody off and on, and that she didn't really know that she could call him her boyfriend or not. That was about it on that. Now, Heidi was last seen on October 17th, 2021, on Gardendale Street in Downey, California.
There's home security footage shows Heidi and her dog on the way to her son's football game on October 17th. Jim Wayne was at the game to watch his son play. He said, Heidi's behavior that day, she was a little frenetic. I see her on the opposite side of the field. Then I saw her walking up in the stands, and then I see her back on the field walking.
This didn't coincide with where they were playing the football game on the field. And then all of a sudden it was halftime. And then she said, I got to go. And I thought to myself, where the hell are you going on a Sunday? What do you have to do? And she left. So a little odd behavior there at the football game and she leaves. And this is the last time Jim sees her.
And according to KTLA, Heidi texted her son and congratulated him on winning the game. Three hours later, though, around 7 p.m., Heidi's dog was found on the 28th floor of the Hope and Flower Complex, an apartment building in downtown L.A. Heidi wasn't there. However, her family and friends wouldn't learn about this for a few days. And Heidi didn't contact her son over the next few days either.
which was completely out of character for her.
Downing is kind of past downtown Los Angeles where this game is, but Hope and Flower is pretty much where the skyline is. I used to work at Fifth and Flower, which is just, I don't know, five blocks away from where her dog is found in this building. So it's a lot of business buildings and high-rise apartment complexes. There's not a lot to do down there after hours.
So of course her son is missing his mom. On October 18th, Bond texts his mother. Can you please call me back? I called you two days in a row and you haven't picked up. The following day he texted his mom again. Please call or just text because I want to make sure you're okay and I'm worried about you. And then later that same day he texted, please call mom. I miss you and I'm worried about you. So of course this is probably the hardest on Bond.
The fact that Heidi Plank is missing. So she's seen walking her dog, or we assume that she's with her dog somewhere downtown. And then her dog's found on this floor in this high-rise apartment building. They don't know where her vehicle is yet. They don't know where she is. She's not answering her phone. She just disappears out of thin air, as they like to say.
I'm thinking if I'm a police officer and I'm looking for this person, I'm going to look at every single person in this building, especially every single person that owns an apartment on that floor where her dog was found.
Now, Jim Wayne spoke to his son, Bond, and asked, have you talked to your mom? And Bond replied that he texted and called her, but she didn't respond. So then Wayne texted Heidi and she didn't answer. And he thought this was strange, but he wasn't too concerned at that point because it's not like they talk every day. But he did think it was weird that she hadn't reached out to anybody, at least his son or himself by that point. So I guess...
I guess his thought process was, well, Heidi's supposed to pick Bond up from school the next day on October 20th. So we'll see what happens.
And October 20th comes, Jim called Bond's school and asked the school to notify him if Heidi came to pick him up. He wanted the staff to keep Bond until he could get there to speak to Heidi. So he's like, she's supposed to be there. Can you delay them? Because I want to talk to her. But the school informs him that Heidi doesn't come to pick up their son. So this is definitely the first red flag here.
Yeah, at least the first one for Jim. Now, he reports Heidi missing that day, and LAPD detectives do a wellness check at Heidi's home. She had a rented townhouse in Palms, and Jim said the home was in pristine condition, but her phone and laptops were left behind. So then Jim tries to call Heidi's so-called boyfriend. I mean, there's some dispute about this, but it seems like
That's the guy that she's been seeing is Naeem Salaam, who lives in the Bay Area. He's vice president of operations for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is Facebook's philanthropy. So her boyfriend said he hadn't seen Heidi in a while because he'd been busy at work, but he had received an alarming text from her telling him she was afraid and asking him to come to LA that weekend, but he couldn't make it.
So, Jim's trying to find her. Obviously, they get along well enough that Jim can message her current boyfriend and he's saying, yeah, I haven't talked to her and I'm up in the Bay Area, but she said she was afraid. That's where we're at now.
Jim also tries tracking Heidi through her vehicle's GPS, her earbuds, and her Apple Watch. So he has access to that, but the location finder had been turned off on those devices. So then Jim also spoke to the police about how they could possibly check Heidi's GPS. And a detective told him that the GPS feature was never turned on. So then Jim asked, wait, did someone disable it?
And the detective said, we can't tell you that. We can just tell you it wasn't turned on. So of course, now there are all these things that can't be tracked anymore, which is very strange. You know, the iPhone, the laptop, the Apple watch and the car, none of those. So of course, Jim, he ends up talking to Dateline and he said, I don't think it's a coincidence at all. So then Jim remembers that Heidi's dog had a microchip. So he contacted the microchip company and tried to add his number to the contact list. He was
He was told somebody already found the dog. Heidi had received a text from a woman who found her dog, looked at the microchip information and tried to contact her. But of course, you know, Heidi's not answering. This is how Jim learns the dog had been found in a building in downtown Los Angeles. So apparently this dog was cared for until it was retrieved. And Jim's the one who picked up the dog from the people who found it. And they told him that the building had multiple layers of security, which
which means for Heidi to be in that building, someone had to give her access. Yeah, this is pretty typical of a lot of downtown high-rise buildings in Los Angeles. They have strict security rules. I completely agree with the people that live there that somebody had to give her access or she had to have followed somebody in and they didn't question her about it, but that's kind of unlikely.
According to Heidi's friends, the building manager refused to allow them to look in the parking garage to see if Heidi's Range Rover was there. The manager was unwilling to share the security footage without a warrant.
So one of Heidi's friends said, it seems to us that everything stems from that building where her dog was found. And Jim Wayne, he said that there is extensive security on each floor of the apartment building. So he didn't know how the dog got in and managed to get to the 28th floor. He did not know of any connection Heidi could have to that Hope and Flower building.
On the evening of October 29th, 2021, federal agents and robbery homicide detectives from the LAPD executed a search warrant on Heidi's home. Sources believe that officers were under the impression that they might have been walking into a crime scene. So photographers and dozens of agents were at the house to search for evidence, including trash and planters around the home.
It was thought that they were searching for something related to Heidi's job because there was a federal securities investigation going on with her employer. LA Magazine noted that Heidi's personal address was listed as the business address for Camden Capital Partners, which kind of ties this all together, right? Yeah, and Jim had talked to Fox News about
and said that he received a phone call from an SEC official on October 21st asking him what he knew about Heidi's boss, Jason Sugarman. And Jim said, I don't know how she got my name, and I don't know how she got my number, but she called me and started asking me questions about Sugarman. Something's dirty here.
Jim Wayne said the SEC investigators also asked him where Heidi's laptop was. Heidi had recently told her friends and family that Camden Capital had some tax filings that were due and complained that her boss has her name on so much of their corporate paperwork, according to Jim.
Yeah. So the plot thickens. We have a missing woman. Her dog's found on the 28th floor of this building. Now Jim's finding out that her company that she worked for is under a federal investigation and they're able to get his name even. That's how serious this is. So this is a crazy story to me because if there is something going on with her partners, with her business, that
That's a potential theory here, because why would her name be on this paperwork like that if she's not top doc?
Now, Heidi's friend, Natalie John, told KTLA 5 that in the days leading up to her disappearance, Heidi seemed stressed and nervous, but she wouldn't give any details. Now, obviously, we can read into this and say, if nothing else, this whole investigation, the problems with the company she worked at, that might be enough, right? Now, Jim said that law enforcement took all of Heidi's electronics as well as her son's phone. Having an elevated style doesn't mean you have to break your bank.
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According to CBS LA, Jim Wayne allegedly took Heidi's work laptop and her personal phone on October 20th and kept them for more than a week before he gave them over to police. But he says no comment on that. But I mean, it does take time for the police to collect stuff. I mean, it's not like
She went missing and everyone knew she was missing from day one. So even if he did have her items for a week, I don't think that's very suspicious myself. On November 3rd, 2021, CBS LA learned that LAPD detectives seized security footage from the apartment building. Now, since they had cameras all over the place inside the building, there's hope that that might reveal some answers.
And they end up discovering her vehicle, the Range Rover. It was in a nearby underground parking garage several blocks away.
Now it's not stated if this was just a private parking garage or if this was a parking garage belonging to another apartment building. It's kind of confusing down there. So I think this is just a private parking garage where her vehicle was found, which is pretty typical. You just park there and then walk a couple blocks to wherever you're going.
Now, the same day that her car is found, a new video is discovered. The video shows Heidi's boss, Jason Sugarman, ringing her doorbell and leaving a box of muffins at her door. Now, the day that he leaves these muffins is about a day or two after her disappearance. So, of course, this raises questions. Yeah. And anyone that's involved with this case...
especially internet sleuths, they refer to Jason Sugarman as the Muffin Man now. That is his nickname online. November 5th, there were reports of a new video showing Heidi at the apartment building in downtown LA. The video shows Heidi walking her dog in an alley behind the Hope and Flower Complex.
She is just walking her dog. If you've seen this video, there's nothing very suspicious about it. She just walks past at 6.22 p.m. on October 17th. Nothing really stands out about this video. But Natalie John talks to CBS and said, It strikes me that she doesn't have her purse. If you look closely, she has a mask in her right hand.
The dog is walking with her. He's wagging his tail. So I think the mask definitely suggests that she's going into the building or an intent to go into the building of some sort. Meaning, you know, at the time she was going to put her mask on because, you know, COVID restrictions, whatever. Heidi's dog was found 30 minutes after this video was taken at 622. So that's pretty quick. We have a 30 minute window.
As far as Heidi's friends and family know, she doesn't have any connections to this area. But according to one of Heidi's friends, the building staff confirmed they were familiar with Heidi and recognized her dog. So most people say they don't know why she would be there. One of her friends said, well, yeah, the building staff know her. They recognize her, etc.,
The police also find video footage of Heidi inside the apartment building. Investigators were able to narrow down who might have been involved. It was thought that Heidi was going to a party that evening. And LA Magazine reported on December 2021 that residents of the apartment building told detectives that Heidi attended parties in the building and may have overdosed. Party goers allegedly then threw her body in the trash chute.
The building's garbage is then transported to the Jaquita Canyon landfill, which is about 40 miles away.
So we have apparently people at this building know her. The building staff is familiar with her. So that would indicate she would have access to this building somehow, even if it's just she knows Bob behind the security desk who will buzz her in. And if there's parties going on and she did overdose on drugs, well, now the rumor is that they threw her in the trash.
Eric Leonard, a KNBC investigative reporter, talked to Dateline in 2022 and said, Leveraging the information they got from the building, which includes profiles of the people who lived there, visitor logs, all those kinds of things, it was very clear where Heidi had gone, and pretty early on there was a recognition that there were lots of people there. There were a number of people to question.
Natalie John questions this theory because she says Heidi would have changed clothes and left the dog at home if she was attending a party. A former resident named Jennifer told Dateline that there were a lot of parties at Hope and Flower. She noted that people smoked weed at these parties, which is totally legal in California, and said she wouldn't be surprised if other drugs were being used. So obviously Heidi knows somebody here at this building, and that's how she got in.
Now, this story was covered on Dateline, and Josh Mankiewicz, the host, talked about how the police started hearing that something bad happened to Heidi at this party. Eric Leonard said Heidi had some kind of medical episode. No one called 911, and she died.
So Leonard said investigators think that Heidi believed she was using one type of drug, but actually ingested something laced with fentanyl. This is only a theory and can't be confirmed without an autopsy, obviously.
Jim told Dateline that Heidi used Adderall and had multiple prescriptions. She practiced doctor shopping or farming, where you get one prescription through insurance and then you pay for cash from another pharmacy. Natalie John said Heidi used her prescribed Adderall but did not abuse the drug. And you can abuse amphetamines regularly.
It's very common, but for someone who actually does have ADHD, I forget to take mine all the time. So I don't abuse mine. I have extras. But yeah, this is the only drug that I guess her ex-husband and friends know that she uses on a daily basis.
But Natalie John also said that Heidi didn't use recreational drugs. But according to Eric Leonard, the police confirmed that Heidi was likely put into a trash chute and landed in a large dumpster and trash compactor. Security cameras never captured Heidi leaving the building, which helps support this theory. But by the time the police learned about this, the dumpsters had already been taken to the landfill. Each dumpster is tracked by GPS,
to a plotted location at the landfill. Which, hey, this is a huge lead in the case. So it's November 29th, detectives searched the Chiquita Canyon landfill, and the LAPD released a statement that said, forensic evidence was located inside the building, which has led detectives to believe an incident occurred resulting in Plank's death.
Now, this information is kept secret. We don't know what forensic evidence was found. Obviously, investigators are going to hold that back in case there are more developments.
And they're searching this landfill and they're looking in one specific area where they think that truck had dumped its trash. So they're doing their due diligence here, Aaron. I'm giving the investigators a lot of credit here because this landfill is 40 miles away and it's a huge area. So this is pretty good investigative work so far.
November 29th, Jim Wayne, her ex-husband, said he didn't want to speculate about who was involved, but he felt like Sugarman was more worried about where his laptop was than Heidi.
Now, Jim told LA Magazine that he tried to contact Jason Sugarman, asking if he had any information about Heidi's whereabouts. He spoke to Sugarman's assistant, and all they would tell him was that Sugarman wanted Heidi's work laptop back. Jim said he heard Sugarman in the background saying, tell him I want the laptop.
Sugarman drove to Heidi's townhouse the day of the phone call. Obviously, he probably was trying to get the laptop back, talk to Heidi if she was still around. But I mean, at that point, Heidi's missing already. So does Sugarman know she's missing or does he not know she's missing? If he doesn't know, then he's showing up to try to get the laptop.
If he does know she's missing, then this muffin situation is interpreted as, oh, he's trying to act like he doesn't know what happened, so he's leaving her a gift.
Jim received a follow-up call from the assistant asking for the laptop, and they said that Sugarman believed there was sensitive information on it. Now, Jim had already given this laptop over to the FBI at that point, and the assistant was telling Jim that Sugarman believed that Heidi ran away with some company money.
So now it's a situation of, did something happen to her or did she embezzle money and run off? This is, you know, kind of the competing theories now. So this search though, at the landfill, Justin, it takes them a while.
Like most do. I mean, we've covered cases before where, I mean, searching a landfill is not easy because you have to scrape each layer down very carefully just in case you find remains because you can't destroy the evidence. And when you have a huge, massive area to search and you're scraping off one layer at a time, it definitely is huge effort. I mean, by December 9th, they're still working there and they're
and they'd gone through about a thousand tons of waste and debris. But unfortunately, this search doesn't lead to any conclusive evidence. Now on April 6th of 2022, the SEC wrote to a federal court asking for a court order to allow federal investigators to be present when Sugarman and his legal team reviewed Heidi's files, which were given to the SEC after she went missing.
The filing stated that Sugarman was concerned about a laptop that was removed from Heidi's home. Mr. Sugarman is deeply troubled by the commission's conduct with respect to documents apparently belonging to Camden or Mr. Sugarman that were stored in Mrs. Plank's apartment where she was working during the pandemic. The documents currently in the commission's possession were removed from Mrs. Plank's home by her ex-husband, Jim Wayne.
without Camden or Mr. Sugarman's knowledge or permission. His attorney argued that the laptop should be excluded from evidence because the SEC obtained it without a warrant.
So, Camden, the company, is under investigation. They got possession of this laptop, and they're trying to argue that, no, you didn't have a warrant for that laptop because your warrant was to search for her, and her being missing, it wasn't for the investigation into our company.
So Sugarman's attorneys argued that this is basically stolen property and that this all happened because Jim Wayne gave five boxes of documents labeled Camden and a company laptop to the police.
SEC lawyer Nancy Brown said in April 2022 at a court hearing that Heidi's case is now a likely homicide investigation. Now, some people are wondering, how could Heidi afford to rent her townhouse when she made $145,000 annually? So, of course, LA Magazine talks with Jim Wayne and asks, how is this possible? And his answer is, all I know is,
that she always had piles of cash and took a lot of vacations. She told me that her boss floats her money when they close a deal. So it sounds like maybe she's getting some, I don't know, under the table bonuses on top of that $145,000, right? That's at least what's implied here.
Yeah. And to most people, $145,000 a year seems like a very adequate salary. But in L.A., that's pretty much just close to minimum wage. Now, L.A. Magazine looked into this, and according to them, a public record search showed that Heidi was listed as the company's only employee.
When the SEC is coming to investigate and she's listed as the only employee, she's not a CPA. She's not licensed, but she's running all the books for this company. It's not looking good. Don Heim, who's a paralegal and a co-host of Mountain Boots, True Crime in Real Time, a podcast, claimed that she thought she knew what happened to Heidi.
So Dawn visited the apartment building with one of Heidi's friends to see the vigil site. And while they were there, a resident approached them and asked them to come inside to help her fix a flat tire using Dawn's AAA. Afterwards, she invited them to a happy hour in the common area of the building. And she brought up the fact that she has ADHD, which got everyone talking about Heidi Plank.
The woman said she saw Heidi die after taking Adderall laced with fentanyl at a party inside the building. So according to her, Heidi stopped at the building to get Adderall from a man she was seeing, not Salam, and then went to the party. She left her dog with a dog sitter, which apparently she has done before. And at this party, people are gambling with crypto and using drugs.
This, again, is all alleged from this one resident to this podcaster. According to Dawn, she did not do any other drugs, but they told me the Adderall was laced with fentanyl. I was told that she OD'd in the middle of the dance floor, fell down, and broke a glass that she had in her hand. A group of people tried to revive her, but they couldn't, and they got scared because there was a lot of illegal stuff going on in that apartment that night.
The woman who witnessed the incident said she heard Heidi fall down the trash chute, but didn't hear her hit the bottom. She went down to the 28th floor and saw Heidi was stuck. Don said the woman showed her videos and pictures that showed the aftermath of Heidi losing consciousness. So this is in line with the original idea that she died at this party, but all this
extra information that apparently the police didn't have or you know everyone in the building knows about
Well, people did talk to the police. An off-duty concierge approached during the conversation and asked what they were talking about. And he and the woman got into an argument, which then went into the hall area. A building manager and security guard came over and told her they shouldn't be talking about it. And she punched the concierge. The witness also punched Dawn's friend. They went to the elevator and the witness got in with them. As they left the building, she allegedly hit Dawn in the head hard enough to give her a concussion.
Now, Jim Wayne knew nothing about these claims, but he was told by the LAPD that up to five people seemed to know what happened to Heidi.
Justin, this whole situation with Don, it makes you really wonder if any of that's true because this witness is so aggressive and is hitting people. This witness is getting into fights with everybody, really. I don't know how credible this whole situation is, but I don't disbelieve Don's account. I just don't know if I believe what this witness said.
Essentially, Don and the people at this building and the rumors of Heidi overdosing on fentanyl and then being dumped down the trash chute. And then we have her ex-boss, her ex-business partner, and all the things happening to him with the business. And it's January 2023. A federal judge entered a final judgment of $10.2 million against Jason Sugarman.
Sugarman consented to the judgment without admitting or denying any of the allegations. This whole thing was essentially he was defrauding an organization and he got caught. And it's alleged that Heidi might have been cooking the books or doing the books and came across this alleged theft. And that's the motive for Jason in this story.
Or at the very least, it's why she seemed so rattled at the time, just before she disappeared.
So a month after this judgment against Jason Sugarman, a judge ruled that Heidi died at 9 p.m. on the night she disappeared. This all happened because Jim Wayne sought to have Heidi declared dead so their son could receive funds from her life insurance policy. A judge said in his decision at the Los Angeles Superior Court on January 17th, the court will note that the petitioner, Jim Wayne, has sufficiently satisfied the burden of proof in
in arguing for death. No reasonable inferences from the evidence adduced can lead one to determine that she remains alive, that is, Heidi. Obviously, Heidi's body has not been found. Obviously, there's no communication with her. And Jim Wayne had divorced her, and he had filed a lot of documentation at the time of the divorce. And some of these documents that were filed are kind of telling of...
Heidi's mindset at the time, it is said that she suffered from postpartum depression and that she had some moments where she had breaks with reality. It's said that on October of 2015, Heidi experienced a full psychotic break.
The incident started when she showed up late to pick up their son. Jim accompanied them back to Heidi's home. During the drive, Heidi became pale and disoriented. She said, I can't be in here. It's too intense. Jim dropped them off at Heidi's home, but she called him soon after and asked to go to his house. Heidi was sitting outside with a plate of bacon and tried to get him to eat it. She calmed down by the time they got back to the house.
I've heard different versions of this bacon story, by the way, Aaron. It was said that she actually even brought it in the vehicle and was trying to feed it to Jim while they were driving.
So they're back at this house and Heidi goes into Bond's room and Jim's out in the living room working, doing whatever he's doing. And he hears a loud noise and he doesn't think much of it because he hears Bond laughing. He doesn't hear anything that's indicating there's a problem. And then Bond came out and said that mom made a mess in his room.
Heidi had ransacked his bedroom and Jim goes in there and he's looking at this mess and Heidi's nowhere to be found. And the windows open. And apparently Heidi had jumped out the window and jumped the neighbor's fence. And a neighbor called the police when she saw Heidi climbing over roofs and fences. Jim went out, tried to find her. The police showed up and said that they had located her, detained her. She was partially clothed.
and was switching a street circuit breaker on and off. At this point, Heidi voluntarily checked herself into a psychiatric hospital, but the next day she asked Jim to take her home. She claimed she was being sexually assaulted at this facility. She asked him why she had a C-section scar and said that she didn't have any children before she hung up.
So this is a complete break with reality that Jim is reporting on. Some people question this because they knew that Jim was trying to get custody of Bond and they're going through a divorce. So people are like, well, divorcees will say anything about their partners. But this is a very specific event that involves the police and other neighbors. So it could be verified. And bacon. Yeah. And bacon. Yeah.
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This is Big Time. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts. I get that when people are divorcing, things can be said and there can be allegations that are basically baseless. But the problem with all this is, is that Heidi seemed to get along with Jim. They seem to have found their way together, you know, as divorced people. And like you said, it's way too specific.
And it seems like Jim, even though this had happened, even though they were divorced, Jim is kind of running the show on some of this search for her, this search effort for her. Jim's trying to support her before she goes missing. Jim is there for her. So I don't think Jim has any malice towards her. He's just trying to deal with this messed up situation. And
He's witnessing her have these breaks and getting very stressed out and spiraling because of her job and stress caused from her job.
Now, this is the third theory that has come out because people hear about her mental break and they think, did she self-harm? Did she do something that ended up taking herself out? But that would be really hard to do when you don't have a body. So unless she threw herself down the trash chute, it's really hard to come up with how did she make herself disappear or how did she kill herself?
One of the things that stood out to me when I was looking at this is just watching interviews with Jim Wayne. He's been out there talking quite a bit over the years. And this is the way I took it, but he said that his motivation to finding Heidi was basically because of their son. This has torn their son up. And what is he supposed to do? His mom is missing. So Jim feels for his son. It's just like,
I'll help find your mother. But, you know, by this point, they know she's not just going to disappear herself, at least according to them. But we don't know what happened to her. They haven't located Heidi Plank in all these years. So it's a real question of what could have happened to her. And so I know you said early on you could change your opinion by the day. How do you feel at the end of this episode? You know, we have the three theories. The first one is that she...
overdosed at a party or was poisoned and killed at a party. Then we have Jason Sugarman and the Camden business that had a scheme to steal $43 million from their clients that they claimed they had invested in a Native American tribal bond, and she was running the show. So people look at Jim Sugarman as a potential suspect in the foul play argument. They
Then you have Heidi's own erratic behavior, even the day she went missing at her son's game. So I could see arguments for all three of those, Aaron. I really can. But the fact that there was this building where she obviously knew people, because you wouldn't be able to get into this building without some kind of in there. Somebody in that building knows what happened.
Her dog was found on the 28th floor. There's no way the dog wanders into the building and gets to the 28th floor. That just doesn't happen. And I'm going off the belief that the police should have interrogated every single person on the 28th floor or every single person in that building that's known to interact with Heidi. But without proper warrants and judgments, I don't know what they can do here because...
There's so many people that could be involved. We don't know exactly who was involved. Nobody's coming forward. And sadly, at the end of the day, if this was an accidental overdose or a poisoning, that's not going to be up on the police's priority list of things. That changes it a little bit as far as investigation goes.
Yeah. I mean, the questions I have are, do people really go to, I don't know, apartment buildings looking for Adderall? It sounded like she was going around and basically farming for Adderall. So did she not have enough? I don't know if that was looked into. And also it doesn't really strike me as believable that she was at a party where she overdosed. That's just my take on that. I
I mean, that seems not as likely, but I guess that the top of my list would be foul play because there's an investigation going on. That's possible, I suppose, or that she could have had another break and she could have harmed herself. I would say accidentally because, you know, she loved her son and I don't think he'd go that many years doing what you can. And all of a sudden it's just over.
I feel like a break could have happened. And I know you had kind of talked to me about that before because you were giving me the reasons why that's possible, and it does make sense. But here we are. How does she get into this building? And why is she going to the building? Like you said, she's getting her Adderall from other places. This building is known for parties. She obviously knows somebody at the building. So I don't think she's going there just to...
get Adderall, I think she's going there to hang out with people and to party. And then something happened. Now, whether somebody did something to her or something happened where she did something to herself, it's unknown until we have her body or until somebody comes forward with information to the police. And the police say they've found evidence, forensic evidence at this building. So what is that? If it's blood, then does that indicate that she
Got into an altercation with somebody? Or is that an indication that she self-harmed? Is it evidence of maybe clothing or blood in the trash chute? This is all speculation on what that evidence they collected was.
So to this day, we don't know where Heidi Plank is, but she was 5'3", 120 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing jeans and a gray sweater. If you have information, you can contact the Los Angeles Police Department Missing Persons Unit at 213-996-1800. Or you can also contact the L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at lacrimestoppers.org. And if you were at that party, I think you should be calling right now.
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