FBI To Exhume Mitrice's Body

The remains of a lesbian woman who had been laid to rest earlier this year will be exhumed by FBI investigators seeking information about how she died. The body of Mitrice Richardson was found nearly a year after she went missing from a Calabasas, Calif., sheriff's station. The 24-year-old was arrested September 17, 2009 for her inability to pay for her dinner at a Malibu restaurant.

She was released from police custody in the early hours of the next day without a phone, car, or wallet, and was not heard from again. Richardson's family launched an extensive search for her in the outlying mountains and valleys of Los Angeles, but the search ended in August when her body was found in Malibu Canyon, near the sheriff's station.

The remains of her body will be shipped to an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., for further examination, according to the Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said he contacted the FBI asking for further investigation after her family requested that more steps be taken to understand how she died. Clothes and a piece of hair believed to be hers will also be sent for examination.

"I feel very elated that Sheriff Baca and the head medical examiner have heard my pleas," Richardson's mother, Latice Sutton, said according to the Times. "There is more on Mitrice's body to explain what happened to her."