LOS ANGELES, CA — On a September night in 2009, 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson vanished shortly after being released from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department.

“Nothing about that evening makes sense to me,” Latice Sutton said of her daughter’s disappearance.

Mitrice showed up at a seaside restaurant acting so strangely, the staff had to call 911. The staff said she appeared to be on drugs, but according to deputies she wasn’t. She wasn’t even drunk.

But they found Marijuana in her car with no money to pay her bill, so she was booked. Her mother called the jailer, and was relieved to learn at least her troubled daughter would be kept safe overnight.

“I would hate to wake up to a morning report, girl lost somewhere with her head chopped off,” Latice said to the Sheriff department.

Mitrice was released with no car, no phone and no money after her record came back clean. Nearly a year later, her half naked body was found in a remote canyon – partially mummified.

“I will never have peace until I have some understanding about what happened to her,” Latice said.

She’s now suing the sheriff’s department for “wrongful death” and “negligence” – saying officers “ignored her daughter’s strange behavior” and “did not take any action to evaluate her mental state.”