When a teen vanishes from a safe neighborhood in California's Bay Area on her way to the school bus stop,

a brutal crime of opportunity and a controversial DNA evidence law lead to a rare no-body homicide conviction in this episode of Last Seen Alive. I'm your host, Leah, crime analyst by day, and true crime

storyteller by night. And as always, I'm your co-host, Scott. This is the revisited and

enhanced edition of our very first episode, which features the case of Sierra Lamar. The original

edition was recorded in 2019, and we've revisited and re-recorded an episode on her case now

in late 2024. As I'm sure those of you who've been listening since the early days of

Last Seen Alive have noticed, our production and audio quality have improved significantly

over the years. To the point where this isn't just the first time we've redone this case, it's now the second.

Yeah, that's true. Lately, we've been working on remaking our earlier episodes. When we

originally recorded them, we were doing the best we knew how at the time. However, our best was not

the best, and we've learned a lot since then. We want to honor these victims by telling

their stories with the production quality they deserve. So, we've been completely remaking all of

our early episodes. I'm talking totally new recordings with any new info or updates included,

and we'll be releasing these new episodes on what we're previously are off Mondays. So that means there will be an

episode of Last Seen Alive airing every single Monday. It'll alternate between totally new cases

we've never covered before, as usual, and revisited and remade episodes like this one on the

Mondays in between. So let's get into Sierra's story. A quick heads up. This episode contains

discussion of sexual assault, including abuse of child victims. We won't go into any graphic

detail, but still, please listen with care. Sierra Lamar was last seen alive on March 16th,

2012. She was 15 years old at the time and lived in Morgan Hill, California.

That's a small city in the southernmost tip of Silicon Valley with her family. Her mom, Marlene Lamar,

was the last to see her that morning as she was getting ready for work, and Sierra was getting

...