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Matthew Chase was just like a lot of young artists who move to Los Angeles to seek out their creative development and success.\\xa0 Back in 1988, then 22 year-old Matthew and his friends, brother-and-sister Steve and Teresa Dahl, were living together after all moving from their childhood homes near Medford Oregon.\\xa0\\xa0And \\u2013 again, like so many other young transplants to Southern California, Matthew, Steve and Teresa moved into one of the grittier parts of Los Angeles, in the heart of the big city, not fully aware of just how \\u201cgritty\\u201d gritty really meant.\\xa0\\xa0As in:\\xa0 At the time, Los Angeles was plagued by one of the worst gang wars ever to hit an American city.\\xa0 And the area where Matthew Chase and his companions lived was one of that gang war\\u2019s hot spots.\\xa0 It was nowhere to be out after dark.\\xa0\\xa0And yet, as often happens, Matthew and the Dahl siblings\\u2019 youthful sense of invincibility left them largely unaware of the risks all around them.\\xa0\\xa0So it was unsurprising that on June 8, 1988, at 11:45 pm, Matthew decided to deposit his paycheck at a local bank ATM.\\xa0\\xa0Matthew was going to walk to the bank, but Teresa Dahl lent Matthew her car to run the errand \\u2013 and to pick up some cat food on the way back.\\xa0 Matt took the car keys, taking with him only his paycheck and his ATM card \\u2013 leaving his wallet, with his driver\\u2019s license in it, behind.\\xa0 After all, it was just a quick trip.\\xa0 Right?\\xa0\\xa0Except that was the last time Teresa or Steve Dahl or any of Matthew\\u2019s other friends ever saw him alive again.\\xa0\\xa0And this is truly a story about the love of friends.\\xa0 Because it was Matthew\\u2019s friends \\u2013 with pretty much no help from the authorities \\u2013 that finally brought their friend\\u2019s case to its uneasy conclusion.\\xa0\\xa0As it happens, in 1988 the Los Angeles Police Department was buried under a wave that not only included the impossible task of battling the gangs \\u2013 but also experiencing its first growing pangs of moving away from a nearly century-long history of abuse, racism and overall corruption.\\xa0 Public attention was finally exposing the LAPD\\u2019s bad secrets to the light of day, but in 1988 many of those bad elements remained.\\xa0\\xa0And one of those bad elements was the LAPD Rampart Division\\u2019s total disinterest in the disappearance of a young artist living in a \\u201cbad\\u201d part of town \\u2013 one detective in particular, whose brazen, arrogant and homophobic ignorance prevented a missing person\\u2019s report to be filed.\\xa0 It was only after more than a week following Matthew\\u2019s disappearance that Teresa Dahl was forced to file a report alleging that Matthew stole her car \\u2013 which she knew he didn\\u2019t do \\u2013 that finally got LAPD to do anything.\\xa0\\xa0Shortly thereafter, Teresa\\u2019s abandoned car was found near the bank0 where Matthew had been headed.\\xa0 Through the efforts of Matthew\\u2019s friends (not the LAPD), it was discovered that Matthew had attempted to make several large withdrawals at multiple ATMs the night of his disappearance.\\xa0 One of those ATMs had a camera that caught extremely fuzzy footage of \\u2013 it is believed - the person assumed to be Matthew\\u2019s abductor \\u2013 a gang member who \\u2013 coincidentally? \\u2013 was executed by gang members on a Hollywood street corner just two days after Matthew Chase disappeared.\\xa0\\xa0In the meantime, a body with two bullet holes in the back of the head, found in a ravine in nearby Pasadena three months after Matthew\\u2019s disappearance, sat in the County Morgue unidentified for another six months until dental records finally proved that it belonged to young Matthew Chase.\\xa0\\xa0In this episode, Melissa unravels this tragic story with great detail \\u2013 and in celebration of the love and commitments of friends who would not let their friend be forgotten \\u2013 and as a question to anyone who was around at the time \\u2013 was the gang member assumed to be Matthew\\u2019s abductor and executioner actually the one responsible for his death?\\xa0 And were there others involved?\\xa0 If anyone knows, call Melissa on the TIP-STER Hotline at (832) 847-7837 or send an email to jttipsters@gmail.com.