Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial live updates: Former assistant Brendan Paul to testify as prosecution wraps up case
Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey said Tuesday that the government will likely rest its case Friday, though that was before court was adjourned early Wednesday morning due to a sick juror. Combs' defense team said it needs two to five days to present its case, but that timeline isn't set in stone.
Combs faces five criminal counts: one count of racketeering conspiracy; two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has vociferously denied the allegations against him.
This live briefing may include graphic descriptions of sexual violence. For resources on sexual assault, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline.
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NBC News
4 days ago
- NBC News
Family of West Virginia mom Melanie Metheny, who vanished 19 years ago, works to change how missing persons cases are handled
In 2005, Catherine Moles hosted a family cookout. Her niece, Melanie Metheny, brought her 3-year-old son Ryan. Catherine remembers Melanie trailing after him around the event and 'doting' on him. 'She followed him everywhere,' Catherine told Dateline. 'She was just very, very watchful of him. She was very protective.' That was one of the last times Catherine ever saw her niece. The 21-year-old vanished on July 19, 2006. Catherine remembers Melanie as the cautious, animal-loving mom whose kids were her entire world. So when Melanie disappeared about a year later and people started to wonder if she had just run off, Catherine says she knew better. 'There's no way that that lady would have left any of her children,' she said. In March of 2006, Melanie wrote a tribute to her children that was later found among her belongings. Titled 'The Best Things in My Life,' the opening line reads, 'My whole life revolves around my three kids.' She then gushes about Ryan and his younger brother and sister, Nathan and Hannah, individually. 'Being a single mom is not easy at all but watching my kids grow up and watching them learn new things for the first time is the greatest feeling I've ever had,' she closed in the tribute. 'I would not change them for the world and I don't know where I'd be right now if I didn't have them but I know my life wouldn't have as much meaning.' Debi told Dateline Melanie wanted to give her kids the best childhood they could have, because hers had been tumultuous, bouncing back and forth between her divorced parents' homes. She had run away multiple times as a teenager, but would always come back. According to her mother, Melanie turned her life around when she got pregnant with Ryan at 16. While Catherine remembers Melanie as a quiet girl, Debi saw a different side of her. She says Melanie was outgoing, loved to be the center of attention, and would always sing and dance. She fondly remembers a 5-year-old Melanie working hard to learn the lyrics to 'Three Little Fishies' so she could perform it for her grandfather. While Debi and Catherine may have seen different parts of Melanie's personality, the sisters agree she never would have run off and left her children behind. 'Once she had those kids, she wasn't going anywhere,' Debi said. July 19, 2006, began like any other day for Melanie. She dropped off her two youngest children at Country Kids Daycare in Belle, West Virginia. Ryan spent that day with his paternal grandparents. Dateline spoke with Larry Dodson, a retired captain of the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office, who still works part-time at its detective bureau. He says that after dropping off her kids, Melanie drove to a friend's house nearby, and then allegedly planned to head to Garnet Career Center to pick up some transcripts to bring to West Virginia State University. 'She wanted to be a nurse, or OB-GYN, or something to do with kids. That's just pretty much who she was,' Debi Daniel said. Melanie never made it to the career center, nor did she return to the daycare to pick up her children. 'To my knowledge, that was Melanie who was supposed to pick them up, and when she didn't, that initiated all this,' Dodson told Dateline. He says Melanie was reported missing by her father at 11:18 p.m. The Kanawha County Sheriff's Office began searching for Melanie immediately, and a BOLO for her van was issued to local departments. Tips began flooding in. Dodson says they received so many tips that he 'doesn't have a clue' as to the full amount, but says investigators pursued each one. Four days into the investigation, a tip came in to police that a vehicle had been found on the West Side of Charleston, West Virginia, where it had been parked for several days. It was Melanie's van. 'There was no indication of anything out of the ordinary in the van, and we took it into custody,' Dodson said. He also told Dateline that the only fingerprints on the van were Melanie's and her boyfriend's, both of whom used it regularly. Dodson says the location of Melanie's car sparked some interest for the police. 'We were kind of like, 'Why in the world would her van be where it was?'' he said. Ultimately, the van didn't give the police much to go on, so they focused on other tips. Bill Daniel, Melanie's stepfather, told Dateline the police have been extremely dedicated to Melanie's case. 'They've been fantastic,' he said. 'They follow up on every lead that comes in and everything.' Larry Dodson elaborated on some of the investigative efforts. 'We've pursued leads about possible drug involvement, we pursued leads with local people that she was involved with, we pursued leads to the state of Maryland and up to D.C.,' he said. 'They even pursued leads on several states along the East Coast, about alleged sightings, and all of them — nothing.' Dodson says several persons of interest have been investigated. 'Some of them were cleared and some of them could possibly still be persons of interest.' He would not comment further on potential persons of interest but did confirm that foul play is suspected in Melanie's disappearance. 'We're still getting tips and getting calls on to check here, to check there,' Dodson said. 'I mean, it's not an everyday thing, but we still get tips to follow up on.' The department does not consider Melanie's case to be cold and is still hoping to provide her family the answers they need. 'I don't know if you can give closure where you can't even tell what happened or where they are or if they're still alive,' Dodson said. 'The family's always going to wonder.' Debi Daniel says that wondering — that not knowing — has created a great deal of stress. 'It just deteriorates your health — your mental health, your physical health.' She told Dateline that before her daughter disappeared, people always remarked on her smile. 'I would be the person that people would say, 'I want to smack you because you're always smiling,'' she said. 'Now I hardly smile anymore.' Debi still has a hard time talking about what happened to Melanie, which is why she rarely agrees to be interviewed about it. 'My mind just totally goes blank when it comes to talking about it. I don't know if it's a survival mechanism, or something,' she said. 'My mind just totally goes blank.' Of course, that doesn't mean she has forgotten Melanie. And the community hasn't either. Melanie's is the oldest missing persons case in Kanawha County. In 2016 — one decade after her disappearance — a tree was planted in Melanie's honor at Coonskin Park in Charleston. It is an Autumn Gold Ginkgo Biloba, which is known for its strength and resilience and has come to symbolize hope. It is also known for its brilliant yellow leaves. 'Yellow is the color for missing persons,' Debi explained. 'And so we chose that tree mainly because of what it represented — the different representations of the tree — but also that in fall, the leaves are yellow.' Melissa's aunt, Catherine Moles, lives near the park and frequently visits the tree to take care of it. 'Every time I'm around the tree, I think of Melanie,' she said. 'There's just probably just too much to really remember — every time I visit, something new comes to mind.' Catherine is the administrator of a Facebook group called ' West Virginia Missing ' that she updates regularly with information on local missing persons. Inspired to help the families of other missing persons, in 2014 she began working to create a bill that was eventually sponsored by State Senator Glenn Jeffries. In 2019, the West Virginia Missing Persons Act became law. 'It basically defines what role, what information is needed to be collected, if possible,' Catherine said. 'And the most important thing was that a missing person's information was to be entered into the [National Missing and Unidentified Person System] database. That was my main goal.' The bill also advocated for stronger police-to-family communication during a missing persons investigation. Catherine told Dateline that Melanie was with her every step of the way through the bill's creation. Now she's working on drafting a new piece of legislation that protects the property of missing persons so they don't lose their property because of missed payments while they were missing. 'Sometimes these missing people are found and they don't want to come back to find out that they're homeless because their home was repo-ed,' Catherine said, adding that she wants to protect their estate for the missing and their heirs. She is hopeful that legislation of this kind will help locate some of the missing and provide some measure of peace to other families. Peace their family is still waiting for. Melanie's children are now in their early twenties, roughly the same age their mother was when she disappeared in 2006. Hannah has a little girl of her own now. The 1-year-old has strawberry-blonde hair just like her mother — and just like the grandmother she never met. At the time of her disappearance, Melanie Metheny was 5'3' and weighed 100 lbs., with strawberry-blonde hair and brown eyes. She would be 40 years old today. Anyone with information regarding the case is asked to contact the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office at 304-357-0200.
NBC News
16-07-2025
- NBC News
Dateline: Missing in America podcast covers the 2017 disappearance of Sophie Reeder from Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Play the episode ' Marked with an X ' of the Dateline: Missing in America podcast below and click here to follow. It was 12:45 a.m. when Sophie Reeder started her journey, slipping out of her house and into a syrupy Florida night. At 2:16 a.m., a security camera recorded her walking along Davie Boulevard in South Fort Lauderdale. She was wearing a short black dress, a brown fur coat, headphones, and high-top sneakers. Sophie Reeder was 15 years old, and that video is the last known image of her on May 20th, 2017 — the day she disappeared. Patrick Reeder is her father. Josh Mankiewicz: 'Patrick, I — I can't imagine how difficult this has been for you.' Patrick Reeder: 'Yeah. It's like a living nightmare — a living nightmare. You gotta deal with it every day.' Police would later discover where Sophie went on her middle-of-the-night walk. The mystery they have not solved... is what happened after she arrived. Josh Mankiewicz: 'She got there after that long walk.' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yeah.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'What does that tell you?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'That puts us in a vicinity to start the investigation. We call it a last-seen point.' Brittany Wallman: 'It is not a place for a 15-year-old in the dark — at all.' That's a reporter who dug into Sophie's case. Brittany Wallman: 'I just always think about how she had that date circled on her calendar.' A May night in 2017. Could that mark on Sophie's calendar be the key to solving her case? Sophie's aunt is on a mission to uncover the truth. Kirsten Milhorn: 'If she's alive, she's against her will somewhere. And I feel like somebody needs to do something — interview the people we know have information — to find her.' I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Missing in America, a podcast from Dateline. This episode is 'Marked with an X.' Please listen closely, because you or someone you know may have information that could help Sophie Reeder's family find the answers they're still looking for. Sophie Reeder is Patrick Reeder's only child. He says long before she could talk, it was obvious she had a spark. Patrick Reeder: 'Before she could even, like, walk completely, she would pull herself on the coffee table and start, like, trying to dance to the music. You know, she was kind of like an entertaining kid.' Kirsten Milhorn is Patrick's sister. She remembers when her niece was a lively little girl with a big personality. Kirsten Milhorn: 'She was just a sweetheart — like, creative and she just loved being around people. Like, super outgoing, gregarious.' Sophie was about to start preschool when Patrick and her mom split up, but they shared custody of Sophie until she was almost 12. By then, Patrick says Sophie and her mom weren't getting along. And he says that was when Sophie asked him if she could live with him full-time. Josh Mankiewicz: 'She was different?' Patrick Reeder: 'Definitely different. But I told her one condition was — she has to go to therapy for a year, weekly. And she agreed to it. Every week I'd drive her to therapy, get her into a therapist.' In between those weekly appointments, Sophie was giving Patrick a long list of reasons to worry. Josh Mankiewicz: 'What are we talking about here?' Patrick Reeder: 'She'd burn things — like, she made little fires, like, burn things outside — like wood, like stuffed toys. And she had, like, you know, started cutting her dolls and stuff like that.' Patrick says Sophie was also cutting herself. Patrick Reeder: 'One time she told me, 'Hey, Dad. I just can't control myself.' I said, 'Well, you gotta control your emotions, you know.' And then she goes, 'I can't.' I go, 'You can, if you try.'' After a year of therapy, Patrick says he did not argue when Sophie gave it up, because that was the deal they had made. Patrick Reeder: 'I stopped the therapy because I made a promise to her. I honored the promise. And maybe I shouldn't have, but I tried to, like, keep my word with her — to keep her trust.' High school only seemed to accelerate Sophie's freefall. Patrick says she started skipping school and hanging out with friends he thought were trouble. In January 2017, Sophie switched to an online high school but kept spending time with those friends. Patrick says Sophie and one of them were caught shoplifting. Soon after that incident, Sophie got into a fight and threatened self-harm, so a psychiatrist prescribed medication. Patrick Reeder: 'The medicine just made her, like, drowsy and, like, she couldn't — she couldn't really function, you know?' Josh Mankiewicz: 'It sounds to me like you did do everything you could think of and you're kind of swimming against the tide.' Patrick Reeder: 'Yeah, yeah. I didn't know what I was getting into taking on a, you know, a teenage daughter with mental issues by myself, you know? It was really, uh — it was really challenging.' Kirsten watched her brother struggle to manage his daughter — including her medications. Kirsten Milhorn: 'Whatever the psychiatrist had given her, you know, it takes a while to kick in. And, of course, I don't know any teenager that wants to be medicated.' When Sophie stopped taking her meds, Patrick again did not force it. Instead, he looked for ways to provide emotional support. Patrick Reeder: 'She loved to go on car rides and listen to music, so any time at night, um, we would just, you know, hop in the car, turn on the music — whatever she liked — and drive for like an hour or two, and it really helped her out. She really liked it.' Sophie also liked to take long walks by herself. Kirsten Milhorn: 'When she would visit my dad's house, you know, she'd walk up and down the beach for hours. It seemed like, you know, just to clear her mind.' Near the end of January 2017, a couple of weeks before she turned 15, Sophie asked Patrick's girlfriend to cut her hair. Sophie (video): 'Dad, do you want to film it?' Patrick had already hit record... Sophie: 'So how are you feeling?' Patrick: 'I'm feeling good. How about you?' Sophie: 'I'm excited, a bit nervous.' Patrick: 'Why is that? You're getting your haircut?' Sophie: 'Yeah, I've never had short hair before. I mean, it's pretty short now. It's gonna be cute.' Almost four months after that haircut came a sign Sophie might have turned a corner. On Thursday, May 18th, she did something unexpected for Patrick and his girlfriend. Patrick Reeder: 'She made us a big dinner, and I was like, 'Wow, that's great.' You know, it was really nice, you know? Chicken, vegetables, you know, everything she could think of.' Maybe Sophie was finally on the other side of a very rough stretch. It can be hard to tell with a troubled teenager. The next night — Friday, May 19th — Patrick says he was getting ready to go to sleep. It was around 11:30 p.m., and Sophie was wide awake, texting on her phone. Patrick Reeder: 'She was pacing up and down the house. From the front to the back, front to the back, front to the back. And I said, 'Sophie, go to bed. You know, it's getting late, you gotta go to bed.' She's goes, 'OK.'' When Patrick got up the next morning, Sophie's bedroom door was closed, and he figured she was sleeping in that Saturday — as usual. So he left to do errands and texted her while he was out. She didn't reply, and when he got home she was not in her room. That's when Patrick noticed Sophie had left a candle burning. Patrick Reeder: 'She left it on — one candle.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Her leaving a candle lit, I mean, that feels like somebody was going to be back in a minute.' Patrick Reeder: 'Yeah, exactly.' She was not back in a minute — or in an hour, or two hours, or three. Patrick checked with his brother and father to see if they knew where she was. They did not. Patrick asked his brother to check with Sophie's mom, because sometimes Sophie took the bus to visit her. Josh Mankiewicz: 'So her being out of touch for a period of time was not immediately alarming?' Patrick Reeder: 'Not at all. No, not at all.' By Sunday, they had heard back from Sophie's mom, and she did not know where Sophie was either. Now, alarms were starting to go off. Patrick says he thought he had to wait 48 hours to file a missing persons report, so he waited until Monday. Patrick Reeder: 'When I made the police report — the lady that took it, she's like, 'It's a teenage girl. They usually run away. They'll come back in a week or two.' I'm like, you know, 'Seems strange, but I mean, I got to believe what you're saying because — that's my first teenage daughter.'' Josh Mankiewicz: 'You thought, 'OK, that seems plausible.'' Patrick Reeder: 'Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely seemed plausible. She made it seem so — like — like that's a normal thing, like, a lot of teenage girls do. They go missing and then they show up at their friend's house like a week or two later.' Sophie did not show up anywhere. The Fort Lauderdale police told us Sophie's name was entered into the National Missing Persons database the day Patrick filed a missing report. Officers looked for clues online and searched the area around Sophie's home and inside it. In Sophie's bedroom, they found crumpled cash in a bag by her bed. Josh Mankiewicz: 'Police find $300 in her room and they say to you, 'Where'd she get that money?' And you have no idea.' Patrick Reeder: 'I have no idea. I had no idea how she got the $300. But, um, it was there.' Sophie did not have a part-time job or a big allowance. That stash of cash seemed to suggest she had not planned to be gone for long. Otherwise, why leave that behind? Soon, detectives found another clue — this one in plain sight, on Sophie's wall calendar. Friday, May 19th — the last day Patrick had seen her — was marked with an X. Josh Mankiewicz: 'That makes you think she's planning something for that date, even though her room does not suggest somebody who was leaving forever?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Right. Yeah. You hit certain areas in an investigation where you see certain things that stand out, and you look back and say, 'What was the connection there?'' That is Sgt. Don Geiger. He was assigned Sophie's cold case in 2024. Unraveling the meaning of that X would be a quest for detectives. Sophie had two phones, and she left with one of them. Both held potentially crucial information. Soon, Sophie's computer would reveal another clue — one that stunned and worried her family. She had been visiting websites where young attractive women can connect with rich older men… also known as sugar daddies. Kirsten Milhorn: 'She was researching, kind of putting herself out there to see what happened.' Learning your 15-year-old daughter has been visiting sugar daddy websites is not what any parent wants to hear. For Patrick Reeder, it was hard to process. Patrick Reeder: 'It shocked me because I—I had no idea of course, you know.' Now police needed to find out if Sophie had actually found a sugar daddy online. Sergeant Don Geiger says the answer to that question appeared to be... no. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Once a forensics investigation was done on the laptop there was no indication that she'd ever engaged in anything on those websites. It was just mere, um, signing up for 'em.' Of course, websites were not the only way Sophie could have met someone. Her cell phone data was about to point investigators to another corner of her secret life. Police used that data to reconstruct her movements before her disappearance. Two weeks after Sophie was reported missing, they zeroed in on her last known location. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Her last ping of her cell phone, uh, was in an area that we believed that she may have been going to, uh, maybe purchase marijuana or something like that. We don't believe that she left that location.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Or her phone didn't anyway.' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Correct.' The location he's talking about is an apartment complex in the 1700 block of SW 11th Court in Fort Lauderdale. It is less than two miles from Sophie's house, but it's a world away from the waterfront homes and pools in her neighborhood. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'We've determined that she had frequented that area, according to some of her friends, to purchase marijuana.' Police believe a man who lived in that apartment complex was selling weed to Sophie. His name is Leonard Jennings, and he is a convicted felon. Police said Sophie's phone records showed the two people she called most frequently were her father—and Leonard Jennings. They also determined Sophie had placed one of her many phone calls to Jennings at 3:07 a.m. on May 20th, the night she disappeared—when she arrived at his address. After that call ended, her phone continued pinging from that location until 9:13 a.m., when it stopped connecting to the cellular network. Police believe she was inside Jennings's apartment at that time. Josh Mankiewicz: 'When her phone shuts off, does that mean somebody just turned it off, or somebody stepped on it, or the battery ran down?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'It could have been all. We don't know.' Based on Sophie's phone records and the pings that placed her at Jennings's apartment, police considered Leonard Jennings a suspect in her disappearance. However, it was not until July 2017—more than five weeks after they had learned Sophie's last location—that police searched the apartment Jennings and two of his brothers shared with their mom. All three brothers had lengthy criminal records. Leonard Jennings had served time for offenses including aggravated assault, stalking, grand theft, and possession of cocaine. Among the items police took from the apartment were 25 cell phones, two media players, headphones, two computer towers, a journal, a hard drive, some live ammunition... and a wig. Police could not link any of those items to Sophie Reeder, and none of her belongings were found at the Jennings residence. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yes.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'All tell the same story? 'We didn't see her,' or 'We didn't see her that night.'' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yeah. 'We don't know.'' Josh Mankiewicz: ''We don't know her at all' or 'We didn't see her that night'?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'They haven't seen her. And there's just not enough, you know, probable cause there to move forward.' Police did not arrest any of the brothers. They told us there was not sufficient evidence to continue considering Leonard Jennings a suspect. Still, back in 2017, there was someone else police wanted to interview. They found out Jennings had called a neighbor who was a suspected trafficker. That was three days after Sophie's disappearance. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'There was talk that he had ties to sex trafficking and things like that, but I don't believe there was ever any convictions of any sex trafficking.' Sergeant Geiger was right. As of June 2025, Jennings's neighbor had no convictions on any sex-trafficking charges. Geiger says the suspicions police had in 2017 were based on what they were hearing on the streets. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'It was just brought up through other persons. And you know how the streets are, right? Like, when you get somebody for something, they go, 'Oh, well, so and so does it, too,' you know? So that's where some of that came up from.' The Fort Lauderdale PD told us they tried to speak with that man when they passed out missing persons flyers in their initial search for Sophie. They said he opened his door when officers knocked but became uncooperative when Sophie's name was mentioned and refused to continue speaking with them. In September 2018—16 months after Sophie's disappearance—police searched Leonard Jennings's apartment again, and they also searched his neighbor's apartment. By then, both men had moved out and the units were vacant. During those searches, police upped their game, using luminol to check for any traces of blood. They did not find that and they did not find any other evidence linked to Sophie Reeder. Brittany Wallman is an investigative reporter at the Miami Herald and she remembers the moment in 2017 when she heard Sophie Reeder was missing. Brittany Wallman: 'I heard it on TV. I was in the newsroom.' Back then, Brittany worked at the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale and she recognized Sophie's name immediately because a decade earlier, Brittany's daughter and Sophie had gone to the same preschool. Brittany Wallman: 'And I knew she was a well-loved, well-cared-for child that came from a nice neighborhood and all of that." Brittany thinks race was a factor in how much coverage Sophie's story received. Sophie has brown skin and brown curly hair. Brittany Wallman: 'To be a cynical journalist, she's a mixed-race child. Her mother is Black, her father's white.' Even as local news outlets, including her own, moved on to other stories, Brittany kept in touch with a private investigator who was helping Sophie's mom look for her daughter. He was a retired Miami Dade Police detective and believed Sophie was targeted by sex traffickers, in part, because he had learned she was exploring those sugar daddy websites. Brittany Wallman: 'Originally I just thought, 'Sophie's missing.' I didn't know that there was any nexus, potentially, with trafficking.' Four years after Sophie went missing, Brittany and other reporters of the Sun Sentinel began a year-long investigation into sex trafficking in Florida. As part of that project, Brittany did a deep dive into Sophie's case. And that's when she read the affidavit for the search of Leonard Jennings's apartment back in 2017. The document listed the potential crimes being investigated, and it was a chilling list: kidnapping, human trafficking, and murder. Brittany Wallman: 'I do. I don't think it's anything about her upbringing, or her parenting, or her status in life. She's just a teenage girl online, you know?' Josh Mankiewicz: 'And attractive. And lost.' Brittany Wallman: 'Yeah.' Sophie's diary revealed just how lost she felt. It was among the evidence police collected from Sophie's bedroom. Her aunt, Kirsten Milhorn, let Brittany read the diary after police returned it. And two entries stood out. Brittany Wallman: 'She said 'I'm used, unwanted, unloved, lonely. I'm like the penny you dropped under the sofa, but you don't care 'cause hell, it's just a penny.' And then another time she wrote: 'What to do when I'm 15 — make 10 new friends, go to the beach three times a week, get 10 sugar daddies.'' Josh Mankiewicz: 'OK, I'm gonna say that any parent who read those words in their child's diary should be getting some intervention for that child—should be taking that kid to therapy or—or at least, you know, addressing what's some significant, dangerous feelings there. But I gather—nobody did read her diary?' Brittany Wallman: 'I don't think so. I don't know that—who has all the tools to parent a troubled teen daughter? I know they did try some things, but then she ended up dropping out of regular high school and was doing online school. And which, I mean, it was probably even worse for her because she's not, uh, finding good things online.' I asked Patrick about what Sophie wrote in her diary. Josh Mankiewicz: 'She wrote, 'What to do when I'm 15—make 10 new friends, go to the beach three times a week, get 10 sugar daddies.'' Patrick Reeder: 'Wow. That's shocking. I never read her diary because I didn't want to know. It was her personal information. So that's brand-new information to me today. So that is shocking.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Reading her diary would've tipped you off about that. It also unquestionably would've been seen by your daughter as a giant violation.' Patrick Reeder: 'Yes, absolutely. Anything like her personal—I gave her respect in her—her—her room. Like, some parents are like, 'No, you gotta go through everything.' And then some are like, 'No, you got to respect their privacy.'' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Right.' Patrick Reeder: 'Which one do you want to fall on? I mean, either trust or, you know, you don't trust them. So, I mean, like, I wanted to give her privacy but, I mean, if I saw red flags, I would deal with them. But that stuff in the diary, I didn't know.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'And today you're kicking yourself 'cause you didn't go through her diary?' Patrick Reeder: 'Now, yeah. Yeah. Now I'm kicking myself in the ass.' Patrick's sister, Kirsten, did read Sophie's diary when police returned it, including the entry about finding sugar daddies. Kirsten Milhorn: 'Of course that's not something you'd want your kid to say, but if you knew that information now, what can you do with it? I don't know, I just feel like you shouldn't kick yourself about stuff like that. You have no control over it, you know?' While police did not find evidence Sophie was in direct contact with anyone on a sugar daddy website, they did find something else in her social media that convinced Brittany Sophie had become involved in the world of commercial sex. Brittany Wallman: 'They found a very long Instagram message between her and her best friend, talking about how much to charge for different sex acts.' Could that explain why Sophie had $300 in cash, in a bag, in her bedroom? Wherever it came from, police believed Sophie was spending some of that money on drugs—which may have been how she met Leonard Jennings, the man whose apartment she visited on the night of her disappearance. Brittany Wallman: 'That was who she was buying marijuana from. That's what her friends said. He was a 37-year-old felon. At that time he had 31 felony charges, nine felony convictions and three imprisonments, mostly for drugs, theft, assaults.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'I mean, OK. A habitual offender and maybe a bad guy, but I don't hear a record of crimes against kids or anything sex related.' Brittany Wallman: 'Nope. No. And so the fact that she was at his place, uh, I mean maybe she was meeting somebody there.' Brittany interviewed several of Sophie's friends for her article on the case. She also spoke with Leonard Jennings. Brittany Wallman: 'I talked to him on the phone. He actually took my call. I was shocked and sort of mixed between denying that he even knew who Sophie Reeder was — which is impossible — and saying, 'I don't know where she is.' I mean, so it was, like, not even a good lie.' According to the search warrant application police filed back in 2017, Leonard Jennings, his brothers and their mother had all denied knowing, seeing or communicating with Sophie when they were shown her photo and the missing persons flyer. The document goes on to state: 'These lies directly contradict all of the obtained records and statements from friends regarding Sophie Reeder's relationship with the Jennings family.' On the night Sophie walked to Leonard Jennings's apartment, there's a moment where she walks past a security camera on Davie Boulevard. It is 2:16 a.m., and the area is desolate. In the video, a car drives past Sophie. And it's not just any car—it's a marked cruiser from the Broward County Sheriff's Office. I've watched that video over and over. Josh Mankiewicz: 'The sheriff's department passes her and doesn't even slow down.' Brittany Wallman: 'Isn't that so sad? Every time I watch that, I just, it's so sad because she looks like a child. She had her hair up in little ponytails.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'I mean, we don't know. Maybe they'd just gotten a call. Maybe they got a prisoner in the back and they're transporting him in. I mean, we don't know. But man, you look at that piece of—of video and think, 'If you had stopped, everything could be different today.'' Brittany Wallman: 'It's true. I mean, you know, you could come up with a hundred excuses why that person didn't stop. But just to be—as a human being—you just wish that they're like, 'Why is this child walking at midnight?'' Brittany and other reporters at the Sun Sentinel actually walked the walk Sophie took on the night of her disappearance. They wanted a sense of what she would have seen, how long it took, how far it really was. Brittany says if you head west toward Leonard Jennings's apartment, as Sophie did, the neighborhood changes significantly. Brittany Wallman: 'It's not a good neighborhood at all. I mean, it is not a place for a 15-year-old, you know, in the dark, at all. And that's where she was. Her phone pinged there until, uh, early the next morning.' And that brings us to the question a lot of people have asked—including Brittany—about the investigation into Sophie Reeder's disappearance. Why didn't police search Leonard Jennings's apartment sooner? Brittany Wallman: 'She had a phone on her, you know, so why did it take that long, you know?' That's a question I had for Sergeant Don Geiger. Josh Mankiewicz: 'Her phone pinged right near there, and she'd called Jennings a bunch of times. That doesn't get you through their door?' In any missing persons case, the last known location of the missing person is a crucial piece of information. And this missing person's cell phone number can be a key to finding that location. Fort Lauderdale police and Patrick Reeder disagree about when Patrick gave investigators Sophie's cell phone number. What they agree on, is that after police determined Sophie's phone last pinged at the apartment building where Leonard Jennings lived, police did not search his apartment until more than five weeks later—in July 2017. I asked Sgt. Don Geiger about that. Josh Mankiewicz: 'Why did it take so long to execute a search warrant at the Jennings apartment?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Uh, well, we didn't have enough probable cause initially, based on—.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'I mean, I don't know what your relationships are with the judges and magistrates who issue search warrants, but I mean, her phone pinged right near there. She's a missing 15-year-old girl, and she'd called Jennings a bunch of times. That—that doesn't get you through their door?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'No. No, it wasn't enough because it didn't—it wasn't enough to pinpoint her at that residence at the time.' Meaning they could identify the building, but not the specific apartment. Sergeant Geiger says that since 2017, technology has evolved in ways that make pinging a cell phone more precise. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'The technology we were getting then on the cell phone data was not as accurate as it is in 2025. It was more of a pinging of a generalized location, whereas now it's more isolated and it could have put you almost on top of where the phone is.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Today, you would know what house I was in. Back then, you would only know what neighborhood I was in.' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Correct. Yeah.' I also asked Sgt. Geiger about that sheriff's car that drove past Sophie on Davie Boulevard less than an hour before she reached Leonard Jennings's apartment. Josh Mankiewicz: 'Every time I see that, I think, man, that—that could have changed everything.' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yeah. No, I –. Listen, you know, we watch the same videos and we see the same things. In no way is it a justification of what happened, but I think we always Monday morning quarterback. That area is close to the main jail. It could be a prisoner transport. You know, my heart wants to tell me if I was a patrol officer, I probably would've stopped and, you know, kind of at least questioned what was going on.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'She's 15.' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'She's 15 . Josh Mankiewicz: 'I mean –.' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those – we kick ourselves in the butt, right? You know, could we have done—something differently? Yeah, absolutely. But we don't know what was going on at the time in the situation.' At the time of Sophie's disappearance, Sgt. Geiger worked in the Fort Lauderdale Police Department's narcotics unit. He has a theory about what happened to Sophie at Leonard Jennings's apartment on May 20, 2017, and it does not involve sex trafficking. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'I believe accidental overdose. I don't have the crystal ball to tell me, but I feel like if it was a homicide, somebody eventually talks. With nobody talking, it leads my investigative mindset to go more along the angles of, like, an overdose of narcotics and then, you know, a panic mode set in — from the people involved.' Sophie had bought weed from Jennings in the past, and police think that's why she went to see him on the day she disappeared. In 2017, Geiger says a potent synthetic drug called Flakka was popular in South Florida. It was dangerous, and its victims were often unsuspecting. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'People were buying what they thought was just marijuana or any other type of drug – that was laced with this alpha-PVP substance. And that's what caused these overdoses. And that's where my gut kind of leads me more towards an accidental overdose, based on the history of what was going on at the time.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'If this was an overdose, what do you think happened to her body? Why haven't we found it?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'You know, that's the—that's the million-dollar question. There's, you know, miles and miles of waterway in Fort Lauderdale. The Everglades are 20 minutes to the west. We've had dive teams search different canals. We've had the dive team search behind her residence. There's cadaver dogs throughout the wooded areas next to the Jennings house, and it's, you know, nothing's come up from it.' Geiger has no proof Sophie died of an overdose. He says there's also no proof she was trafficked. Josh Mankiewicz: 'When you say there was nothing there, what would you look for that you did not find?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'You would look for anything on those—on those, uh, those sites and things that she were on—where, you know, they're being groomed, right? They're in instant message chatrooms and things like that, talking to older gentlemen that are trying to feed them this life of luxury, or, you know, preying on the innocence of a child to promise them, you know, money or security or love or whatever that child is desiring—and we didn't see any of that.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Have you ruled out trafficking or you just think it's less likely?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'We've had many, uh, tips that have been sent to us and we'll investigate every one of them. I don't believe that she was trafficked, but nothing's a hundred percent in law enforcement.' Police have not found definitive evidence that Sophie Reeder left Leonard Jennings's apartment alive on May 20th, 2017 — or that she did not. Jennings still lives in Fort Lauderdale, and Sgt. Geiger says he is no longer considered a suspect in Sophie's disappearance. However, police believe he may have information about what happened to Sophie. We have reached out to Leonard Jennings, but he has not responded to our requests for comment. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'I would still say that he's a person of interest.' Over the last two and a half years, Sophie's aunt, Kirsten Milhorn, says she has sent at least fifteen leads to the Fort Lauderdale police—and she's not convinced anyone has checked them out. One lead she sent was an escort ad from Atlanta. Kirsten says she, Patrick, and other relatives all thought the woman in the ad bore a striking resemblance to Sophie. Kirsten Milhorn: 'And I immediately sent it to the police—Fort Lauderdale Police Department. No response. Nothing. Not even a received acknowledgement.' I asked Sgt. Geiger about that lead. Josh Mankiewicz: 'The family talks about an escort ad in Atlanta in which they think the woman in there looks like Sophie. Did you guys follow that up?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yeah, we did. We've had several, uh, tips for escort ads and every one that we've had, we've followed up on and they've all led to negative results.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Do some of the photos look like Sophie?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Oh, absolutely. Absolutely they do.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'But you follow it up and it isn't her?' Sgt. Don Geiger: 'Yeah. Yeah. They've been followed up on and—and it's not her.' Fort Lauderdale police told us every tip they've received in Sophie's case has been investigated—including the ones her family provided. In May 2025, Kirsten became the main point of contact for the family, and police say since then, she has been notified following every tip they have received. Separately, Sophie's mother and Patrick have spent years trying to find their daughter—on their own and with the help of private detectives. It has been more than eight years since they've seen Sophie, and they're learning some of the hard truths that all families of the missing eventually run up against while working with law enforcement. Patrick Reeder: 'You want to believe that the professionals are doing their best job possible to get an end result that you want. However, a lot of times they'll—they—they burn through cases and they pick up another one, you know? So you become a back burner—and it's horrible. I mean, it really is.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'It is. And you're not the only family that I've talked to that feels exactly that way. It's—it's a terrible thing to have to go through when you realize this is not the most important thing for law enforcement anymore. Because it still is for you.' Kirsten Milhorn: 'Right. Exactly.' Don Geiger told me Fort Lauderdale police have not forgotten Sophie's case. It remains open and active. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'We're not going to stop. You know, sometimes cases go cold, um, but that doesn't mean they get closed. We're not going to stop looking.' And that mysterious X on Sophie's calendar marking May 19th remains — to this day — a mystery to police. Sgt. Don Geiger: 'You know, we haven't been able to pinpoint what that connection was or is.' Reporter Brittany Wallman has interviewed several of Sophie's friends, and she believes they know more than what they have told police. Brittany Wallman: 'One of the most frustrating things about this story to me is that there are people who know something and they just won't say.' Brittany still has a photo of Sophie taken back in preschool, at a birthday party for Brittany's daughter. Brittany Wallman: 'I think it was like her fourth birthday, wedding themed. I had them all wear, you know, some kind of fancy dress.' In the photo, the little girls are standing in a row in their fancy dresses, smiling and laughing. Sophie's dress is green with pink flowers, and her hair is in pigtails. It is the picture of innocence. Brittany says that photo is why she wanted to include Sophie's story in the Sun Sentinel's investigation into sex trafficking. Brittany Wallman: 'I just couldn't help but think that, you know, that any picture of 10 girls—one of them could end up being a Sophie Reeder.' At the house Patrick once shared with Sophie, time stands still in his daughter's bedroom. Patrick Reeder: 'Sophie's room—exactly the way she left it. All the same pictures on the wall, her same painting. Candles are still there. Everything is the same way that she left it.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Frozen in time.' Patrick Reeder: 'Frozen in time.' Josh Mankiewicz: 'Not pleasant to ask this, but—you think Sophie's still alive?' Patrick Reeder: 'Well, I have hope and, uh, belief that she is. You know, nobody ever wants to know that their kid has gone before them. I believe I can handle it either way, but I would—I would like the hope and the happiness of seeing her alive one day.' I asked Sophie's aunt, Kirsten Milhorn, the same question. Kirsten Milhorn: 'I'm more realistic maybe. It's been a long time. If she's alive, she's against her will somewhere. And I—and I feel like somebody needs to do something—interview the people we know have information to find her. That's what we want.' Here is how you can help… At the time of her disappearance on May 20th, 2017, Sophie Reeder was 15 years old with brown curly hair and brown eyes. At that time, she was 5'1' and weighed 100 lbs. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for credible information that leads to the recovery of Sophie Reeder. If you have any information about her disappearance, please call the Fort Lauderdale Police Department at 954-828-6677. To see photos of Sophie—and to learn more about other people we've covered in our Missing In America series—go to There you'll also be able to submit cases you think we should cover in the future. Thanks for listening. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.
Metro
13-07-2025
- Metro
Fifty Cent trolls Diddy with AI-generated baby oil video
50 Cent has hit out at his old rival Sean 'Diddy' Combs with an AI-generated video referencing Combs' recent legal troubles. Those keeping up to date with showbiz feuds will be aware that 'Fiddy', real name Curtis James Jackson III, doesn't have a lot of time for Combs, who's recently been on trial for several sex-related felonies. Yet despite Combs being acquitted of the most serious charges against him (sex trafficking and racketeering), that hasn't stopped the In Da Club singer from trolling the disgraced music mogul. In a recent Instagram post, the 50-year-old shared an AI-generated video of Combs walking down a catwalk while wearing a 'baby oil costume'. The video is set to the Jody2Good's song Baby Oil Freak Off Party, a track about the allegations against the I'll Be Missing You singer that was released last year after his arrest. Fifty captioned the video, 'I didn't know Diddy walked in the Michael Amiri show, when did he make Bond!' The post is a clear reference to the more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant that law enforcement seized from Combs' homes in Miami and Los Angeles. While the majority of those commenting on Fiddy's video seem to find the post funny, there are several who've taken issue with it. 'Don't you have anything better to do?? What an example for your sons,' wrote grentzcolleen. Meanwhile, misssunshine_c3 added, 'Now we believe Diddy is living rent free in your big head'. This is hardly the first time Fiddy's taken aim at Combs and those associated with him. Last month, he lashed out at Bianca Censori, Kanye West's wife, following West's appearance at Combs' trial. On Instagram, the rapper slammed both West and Censori, referencing her headline-making see-through outfit from the Grammy Awards earlier this year. 'We are wearing white in honour of the freak offs,' he wrote. 'Damn Ye, you should have brought your dirty little wife with that Grammys outfit! @50centaction.' More Trending Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, while he awaits sentencing in October. On July 2, a jury convicted the 55-year-old on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution of his ex-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, and another woman known as Jane. He was found not guilty of racketeering conspiracy, nor was he found guilty of two charges of sex trafficking in relation to Cassie and Jane. Combs has pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations against him. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: Cassie Ventura releases statement after ex Sean 'Diddy' Combs sex trafficking verdict MORE: Sean 'Diddy' Combs denied bail as he faces 20 years behind bars MORE: What happens next in Sean 'Diddy' Combs sentencing after verdict reached
