Bonita Vista Ranch owner Dia Abrams, right, and ranch hand Jodi Newkirk.
Abrams had been estranged for years from her husband, a wealthy La Jolla developer who died in 2018. She loved the outdoors and animals, so in about 2004 or 2005 she decided to trade the affluent seaside community in San Diego County for a tranquil 115-acre ranch in Mountain Center. Harper said the two had lunch together at the ranch, then went their separate ways — Harper to mow the meadow and Abrams to tend her horses at another property she owned in the neighboring ranch community of Garner Valley.
Dia Abrams with her daughter, Crisara, and son Clinton, following the funeral of Clem Abrams at La Jolla Farms in 2019. Harper said he called a California Highway Patrol officer Abrams knew who lived nearby. The officer, according to Harper, told him law enforcement would not take any action until Abrams had been missing for three days. Harper said he couldn’t remember the officer’s name.
Additionally, Imel recalls Harper telling him during the first search that he had been working on a building on the property — not mowing the meadow — when Abrams went missing. “Abrams went missing under suspicious circumstances and foul play is suspected,” Riverside County sheriff’s investigator Donald Atkinson said in a search warrant affidavit filed in Superior Court on June 16, 2020, eight days after Abrams’ disappearance.
At Abrams’ Bonita Vista Road rental property, which she named Sky High Ranch, investigators seized 2,389 marijuana plants and 357 pounds of processed marijuana, according to the warrant. “A couple of months ago a lead came in that eventually led to this,” Bianco said, declining further comment.Eighteen months after Abrams’ disappearance, Harper would be the central figure in another tragedy at the ranch. On Dec. 23, 2021, ranch hand Jodi Newkirk died in what was reported at the time to be an ATV rollover accident.
Harper, according to the report, told Hoskins that Newkirk had worked on the ranch for about 3 1/2 months. He said she had asked him for a shovel, then rode off to look for a Christmas tree, despite the fact it was raining heavily.