She Came to LA to Act, Ended Up in Shallow Grave

"We know she left the apartment at approximately 1:15 on the afternoon of the 23rd. That's the last time she’s seen alive, and so that's the last credible information we have." But now police have a likely conclusion, and a grim one: They say the remains of Adea Shabani, a Macedonia-born 25-year-old who had spent the last two years in Los Angeles working on a nascent film and modeling career, were likely recovered earlier this week. Shabani was last seen in that Feb. 23 footage, in which she's shown departing her LA apartment with her boyfriend, a man identified as Christopher Spotz—who is now also dead. He committed suicide during a police chase last week, but not before telling police a story that didn't hold up: that an argument shortly into the drive north with Shabani ended with him depositing her along the road near Santa Clarita, just 25 miles from her apartment.

The true distance was much greater: LAPD Capt. William Hayes says remains believed to be Shabani's were found in a shallow grave by a dive team who searched the edge of a creek in the Spenceville Wildlife Area in Nevada County, Calif., some 50 miles north of Sacramento and nearly 400 miles from her home, per the New York Times. Hayes did not explain what led police to that location, though he did say the "rather complex investigation" stretched to Colorado and included a second wildlife area, reports the Los Angeles Times. A cause of death has not been determined, but Hayes' take was bleak: "Something happened and I believe it to be somewhat untoward." Police add that Spotz was engaged to another woman. The Washington Post notes Shabani appeared in an independent film called All or Nothing in 2017. (More missing woman stories.)