The Hidden Third

Nearly 30 years after 15‑year‑old Danielle “Danni” Houchins was murdered in Montana, former LAPD captain Tom Elfmont helped finally bring her family answers. Drawing on more than 25 years running gang and narcotics operations in South Los Angeles, Tom has turned his skills to cold cases and long‑forgotten victims.

In this episode, he takes us inside policing during some of the most volatile moments in modern U.S. history — from Vietnam and the protest years in Berkeley to the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the notorious 39th and Dalton drug raid that put his LAPD career on trial.

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In this episode of The Hidden Third, we sit down with Wallo267 to unpack a story that starts in the harshest possible place: prison.

Wallo caught his first conviction at just 10 years old. By 17, he was sentenced to adult prison, where he would spend the next 20 years locked away. Sometimes in the same facility as his own brother and stepfather. Instead of letting prison break him, he turned it into a classroom.

Inside, Wallo started paying attention. He interviewed every newly arrived inmate about the outside world. Music, technology, culture, slang — tracking how everything was changing while he was gone. He filled notebooks, studied human behavior, and built a philosophy around one idea: your circumstances don’t get to decide your outcome. You do.

Then everything changed.

Wallo got hold of a contraband phone and began posting raw, unfiltered content from inside prison, building an audience before he ever walked out. By the time he stepped back into society, he already had a following and a blueprint for his new life.

Today, Wallo267 is a Cultural Advisor at YouTube, co-host of Million Dollaz Worth of Game — one of the most influential cultural podcasts in the country — and a New York Times bestselling author whose books like Armed with Good Intentions and Yes to You, No to Them have inspired millions.

This conversation dives into incarceration, transformation, cultural influence, and the mindset required to rewrite your story when the system expects you to fail.

If you’re drawn to true crime, prison stories, personal transformation, or high-stakes comeback narratives, this episode is for you.

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How do you find people who do not want to be found?

In this episode of The Hidden Third, Mariana sits down with skip tracer and private investigator Michelle Gomez – described by Wired as “the world’s best bounty hunter” – to unpack how she tracks down people who have disappeared on purpose, from the fugitive Ryan Eugene Mullen to a fake “Prince of Dubai.”

At 4'11" and just over 100 pounds, Michelle doesn’t look like the person you’d send after fugitives, stolen heavy equipment, or missing yachts – and that’s exactly why she’s so good at it. She leans into her unassuming appearance and uses quirky disguises, from Girl Scout getups to sex‑worker personas, wigs, and glasses, to get close to people who do not want to talk.

Michelle grew up in Texas, the daughter of two IBM engineers, and her parents made her build a computer from scratch and solder her own motherboard before she was a teenager. That early crash course in how systems fit together became the blueprint for her career: today she applies the same mindset to people, combing through digital traces, financial records, and tiny “location blips” to build a profile and find the one thread that gives a target away.

Over more than two decades, she’s hunted down fugitives, scammers, debt‑dodgers, and high‑risk skips that collection agencies, other investigators, and even law enforcement have failed to locate. In this conversation, she breaks down her use of open‑source intelligence (OSINT), social engineering, and psychological profiling – and what her biggest cases reveal about privacy, ghosting, and the fantasy of truly disappearing.

If you’re into investigative journalism, true crime, OSINT, or the hidden world of skip tracing and bounty hunting, this episode is for you.

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This past January, America’s so‑called “last cannabis prisoner” walked out of federal custody after serving years on a marijuana trafficking conspiracy between California and the East Coast.

At 24, he was running a multi‑million‑dollar weed pipeline from Northern California to Maryland, using tractor‑trailers, private planes, and even FedEx franchises as part of the cannabis supply chain. Before he was ever arrested, he realized a federal case was coming, contacted a lawyer known for representing El Chapo, and then disappeared into Central America as a fugitive.

In this episode of The Hidden Third, we go inside his full story as a federal cannabis defendant in a “legal weed” America: how his operation actually worked, what happened to the millions he made, and how, once he was back in the system, he says he was scammed by a lawyer he trusted.

We talk about:


How a kid who’d been homeless as a teen in suburban Maryland built a national cannabis logistics network


The nuts and bolts of the operation: Northern California grow, East Coast demand, trucks and FedEx franchises in between


Why he fled to Central America under another identity — and what finally made him come back and face the federal indictment


What happened to the money and why the millions he made didn’t translate into a soft landing


How he says he was scammed by his own lawyer 


Life inside pretrial custody and prison, “diesel therapy,” and what it means to try to rebuild while still on probation

If you’re interested in the war on drugs, federal marijuana cases, or how large‑scale cannabis trafficking really works behind the headlines, this episode pulls back the curtain in a way you rarely hear from someone who’s just come home.

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Nikki Mammano arrived in Hawaii as a college student and, within months, was running crystal meth in Waikiki. She became known as the Crystal Meth Queen of Waikiki — until it all came crashing down. Today, she’s a PTA mom in New Jersey and the author of Breaking Good, a brutally honest memoir about addiction, trauma, and the long road to healing.

In this episode of The Hidden Third, we trace Nikki’s journey from an abused child and teenage addict to a meth dealer in Hawaii’s underworld, and eventually to a sober life built on therapy, accountability, and telling the truth about her past. She talks candidly about prison, homelessness, sex work, parenting with a criminal record, and what recovery really looks like years after the last high.

In this conversation, we cover:


Childhood abuse and the early wounds that shaped her


Her teenage struggle with addiction


How a college move to Hawaii spiraled into full‑time meth dealing


Life as the Crystal Meth Queen of Waikiki and the rules of that underworld


Violence, paranoia, and the moment everything collapsed


Prison, shame, and confronting buried trauma


Homelessness, sex work, and the cost of survival


Parenting, PTA meetings, and living honestly with your past


The role of therapy in long‑term recovery


Why she wrote Breaking Good and what she hopes readers take from it

If you or someone close to you is dealing with addiction, Nikki’s story is not a neat redemption arc — it’s a raw, hopeful map of relapse, repair, and the possibility of starting over.

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