'I need help': Dayton mother's tragic story shines light on sudden nature of mental illness

“So how did you do it? How did you kill her?”

When she asked those questions, Barbara Sapp, 58, was on the phone with a man who had just admitted to killing her 30-year-old daughter.

Sapp needed answers. The man had lied once to her already about how Kristina Chavez had died. Now, Sapp was getting closer to the truth.

Between August 2020 and May 2021, Sapp watched her daughter drift away, both physically and mentally, before she was eventually found dead in a Mexican border state.

This is the story about a mother and her daughter and the sudden nature of mental illness.

It’s also a story of a mother’s hope after a horrifying chain of events, events that might not have ended with Sapp identifying a picture of her daughter’s body, if only Chavez had received the help for which she longed.

Unmistakable

The vivid red hair was the thing Sapp noticed when the photo was shown to her. The picture of Chavez only confirmed what she had known to be true in her heart, she said.

Sapp only needed to see the hair — disfiguration had already taken place by the time the photo was taken by Mexican authorities. The Walla Walla woman’s body appeared to have been at least partially dismembered.

“It was her,” Sapp said, pushing back tears for the umpteenth time during a long, detailed interview with the U-B.

They were the same locks of hair Sapp knew well, unchanging from childhood into adulthood. They belonged to her thoughtful and intuitive daughter.

Sapp wore a tie-dye dress to the interview — one of many creations from her daughter.

Whether with paintings, pictures, cookies, cakes or other projects, Chavez was a creative curator with an eclectic, unique voice — a voice that was extinguished too soon, allegedly at the hands of a man who claimed to share in her struggles as they both suffered a downward mental spiral in 2020, Sapp said.

But before Chavez drove to Mexico, that unmistakable red hair could be seen around Walla Walla, especially at Livit Coffee on East Isaacs Avenue, where Chavez spent much of her time working remotely.

“She loved it here,” Sapp said during the interview, which took place at Livit. Sapp brought a picture book created online via Shutterfly full of memories from her daughter’s life, gifted by her daughter-in-law.

The Dayton mother unwound the details of the story, now months old, as if they had happened an hour before the interview.

Her mind often jumped to the end, recounting the things her daughter’s alleged killer had said over the phone or in text messages.

“He’s out there, somewhere, floating in the wind,” Sapp said of the man. She and other sources never named him, this character who might have killed Chavez. He has never been charged with the crime, nor have any authorities confirmed he’s even a suspect.

Sapp is still waiting for justice, even now — months after she flew to the border to begin the investigation. But Sapp said her faith has grounded her through it all.

“God is really teaching me patience,” she said with a big, defiant smile in the face of her tragic tale.

‘Help’

Kristina Chavez worked for a health care advocacy group — perhaps ironic given that Chavez’s troubles appeared to Sapp to escalate because few could advocate for her.

She would sit at Livit, awaiting assignments of patients who had been taking multiple trips to emergency rooms. Chavez would take note of the person and begin helping them reroute their care away from constant hospital trips to more steady, prolonged care.

Chavez was living in Walla Walla, while her mother continued living in Dayton. Despite the relative distance, Sapp and Chavez stayed close, usually communicating at least once a week and seeing each other face-to-face often.

A couple years before her death, Chavez began developing a friendship with a man who was providing some medical treatment for her.

Sapp said the man told Chavez that he believed God had put the two of them together — that they were kindred spirits.

Kindred indeed, but perhaps not as he perceived. The man suffered from bipolar disorder, Sapp said, and was very open about it with people.

In August 2020, Chavez was diagnosed with the same disorder.

Sapp said the spiral for her daughter was sudden and scary.

“It was really fast,” Sapp said. “Just super fast.”

Things began escalating with multiple “manic” episodes and Sapp beginning to find it harder to relate to her daughter, though she still tried.

The man, who was having financial troubles, moved in with Chavez and her husband in their Walla Walla apartment, Sapp said.

At one point, the man was taken to a facility in Yakima for treatment of his bipolar disorder.

Chavez drove to Yakima to get him and was pulled over by police for going over 100 mph, Sapp said.

Chavez told Sapp that when the officer pulled her over, she put on a motorcycle helmet, poked her head out of the sun roof of the car and put her hands up.

“She told the officer, ‘I need help,’” Sapp recounted. “That’s not normal.”

Sapp said the officer let her off with a ticket and a verbal warning to slow down.

It’s the moment she pointed to as a big “what if?”

What if the officer had apprehended Chavez?

What if she’d gotten help?

What if she never reunited with the man who would allegedly kill her?

Instead, Chavez drove into Yakima, locked her keys in her car on accident, called a locksmith and then was admitted to a mental health facility herself because of statements she made to the locksmith, Sapp said.

Sapp said Chavez was happy to stay the weekend at the hospital and return home, perhaps in a better state of mind. Instead, Chavez learned her insurance company wouldn’t pay for the treatment.

“So they just let her out,” Sapp said.

Things began to spiral more for Chavez, Sapp said. Her daughter ended up losing her job and had trouble even concentrating as the days wore on.

Josue Chavez, Kristina Chavez’s husband, voiced much agony over their strained relationship and the fallout of letting the man into their home.

“She didn’t know some of her own behaviors, sometimes,” Josue Chavez said.

Eventually, in February this year, Kristina Chavez said she was going to Mexico to be with her friend, whom Sapp said was running from his personal problems.

“The whole system was failing her,” Sapp said.”She knew how the system worked, she’d been working with it and being involved in it ... I really feel that the whole system failed her.”

Sapp helped her daughter pack up some things, but then she came back after 15 minutes because she had forgotten some items.

Sapp recalled her daughter telling her not to worry, that she would come back as they embraced and Sapp cried.

“In my heart, I knew I was hugging her for the last time,” Sapp recalled. “I just knew ... I didn’t want to argue with her about it, and I don’t think there was anything I could’ve said to make her stay ... I just let her be the adult she was.”

Nogales, border city

Nogales, in the Mexican state of Sonora, is known for violence, and particularly for violence against women.

According to Nogales International, a news outlet from that area, “femicide” is a recurring issue, highlighted by the brutal death of the city’s former secretary of infrastructure, discovered in March.

Cecilia Yepiz disappeared in January, and her body was found in an unmarked grave March 6, according to Nogales International. She had suffered “multiple acts of violence.”

Women of Nogales took to the streets two days later on International Women’s Day to protest the rise of femicide in the region.

The U.S. Overseas Advisory Securities Council ranked Sonora with a Level 3 travel advisory in 2020, meaning people should reconsider traveling to that area.

Nogales was the city where Kristina Chavez and her friend decided to live.

Not long after, Sapp stopped hearing from her daughter. At first, the younger woman would text frequently and often, Sapp said. But the texting suddenly stopped March 20.

Then, Kristina Chavez’s friend texted Sapp on March 21, telling her he was working with gangs in Nogales who had taken issue with the woman, Sapp said. He didn’t tell her anything else.

Sapp contacted a private investigator, Mario Torres, owner of Casey Investigations in Richland.

Torres said this particular case raised some major red flags for him.

“Normally, someone breaks the law here and then flees to Mexico,” Torres said. “It’s a little unusual that he lured her to Mexico … it’s a little backwards.”

Torres encouraged Sapp to keep the conversation with the man going so they could get more information.

One photo, with three house address digits far in the background, was the main clue Torres had to use. They started tracing where the home in Nogales could be, relative to the few clues her daughter had sent in her messages.

Eventually, the man admitted that Kristina Chavez was dead, first saying that it was a gang, but changing his story often.

He said he had just been released from a mental health institute in Tucson, Arizona, but was also spouting other nonsensical things, Sapp said.

Torres said the man sent hundreds of messages that seemed completely random in content, never connecting two thoughts together.

Then, in early May, Sapp got a call at work. Her supervisor said a man identifying himself as her son had called — it was her daughter’s friend.

“It was the Monday before Mother’s Day,” Sapp said. “He’s much more lucid. He’s been in a Portland hospital. He told me that Kristina was gonna be tortured and put in the sex trade, and he didn’t want that to happen, so he killed her.

“’So how did you do it?’” Sapp asked him. He told her about strangling Kristina Chavez and cutting her legs off at the knees before fleeing the area, Sapp said.

Torres contacted the Portland Police Department to see how they could go about pressing charges, but there was much uncertainty because of the international nature of the alleged crime.

Not long after, however, Mexican authorities found a dismembered body down the street from the home Torres believed the two were living in.

“After that, it became a circus,” Torres said.

A Portland police officer finally spoke plainly to Torres in June, he said. The officer said he was a liaison for the Portland Police Department to speak to the FBI on cases they were covering. Torres was told the Sonoran government has jurisdiction over the case.

In speaking with authorities, Torres said it seemed like this case was one of many similar stories in Nogales.

“I wasn’t getting the ‘wow’ factor,” Torres said of the “heinous” accusations. “I got the feeling they deal with this stuff all the time.”

Sapp eventually worked with the U.S. Consulate of Nogales, to travel to Nogales, Arizona, which is just across the border from Nogales, Mexico, and identify her daughter’s body at the border. They advised her to only look at the pictures, given the brutal nature of the alleged killing. She and a family member provided DNA samples to help identify the body.

The test came back in July, affirming that it was Kristina Chavez.

Sapp was told by an FBI agent assigned to the case that Mexican authorities are pursuing charges — something they had to “wait and see” on after Mexico’s election in June, which rearranged the prosecutor’s office of Sonora.

On top of that, Nogales has become a de facto war zone between drug cartels and the government. Violence has plagued the city, especially in the last year, according to the online, nonprofit news organization Intercept, with some ambushes and gun fights happening in broad daylight in public spaces.

Trafficking of humans and drugs is also a heavily documented issue in the region. In May, violence was particularly high in Mexico’s northern states as some politicians were targeted by gangs, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Because of these myriad reasons, the wheels of justice have been moving slowly for the Sapp family.

Torres said the alleged killer has backtracked on some of his statements after obtaining a lawyer.

“He admitted to me that he’s the one who did it,” Sapp said.

Sapp and Torres both said they believe he did indeed kill Kristina Chavez and that money seems to be at the center of the case. The woman told Sapp she had gone down to Nogales with about $4,000 cash.

“I believe he did it for the money,” Sapp said.

Believing

It has been a tough year for Sapp. She’s had work drama and suffered the deaths of more than one loved one, including her daughter.

She’s no stranger to tragedy, either. Not long ago, she watched her father die of a heart attack. She performed CPR on him, to no avail.

Through it all, Sapp said she’s never lost her faith.

“She was always in high spirits,” Torres remembered of his conversations with Sapp.

Even in recounting her heartbreaking story, Sapp smiled often and never lost her composure.

Nearby, her husband and stepfather to Kristina Chavez, Doug Sapp, 60, sat stoic and silent, ready to support his wife.

“I always tell people that if it weren’t for my faith and my sense of humor, I would’ve been dead a long time ago,” Barbara Sapp said. “The only reason that I get up every day, out of bed, is my faith.”

The Dayton woman said she’s scheduled this week to fly to Tucson and drive to Nogales, Mexico, to retrieve her daughter, obtain a death certificate and have Kristina Chavez cremated and flown back to Walla Walla. She’s hoping to hear from the FBI soon on where the case is headed.

Regardless of what happens next, Barbara Sapp said she has hope.

“We raised her to believe,” she said of her daughter. “I believe in my heart of hearts that she’s upstairs, partying with everyone — my parents, her uncle ... definitely her (grandparents) ... sometimes I wish I could join her already, but I have to stay here.”

Local folks have pitched in to help, in the meantime, including organizing a fundraiser run by Kristina Chavez’s friends with whom she played pickleball at Pioneer Park.

Barbara Sapp baked some goods for the fundraiser, which netted more than $1,000 to help pay for the woman’s cremation and retrieval from Mexico.

A scratch cook, she raised her daughter the same way, baking many goodies and treats in her lifetime.

“I made lemon bars and put freeze-dried raspberries in them,” she said. “She would have loved that.”