General Neil McCasland _ Melissa Casias_ FACT vs. FICTION

This is a very important video regarding retired missing Air Force General William Neil McCaslin and also former Los Alamos National Lab employee Melissa Casillas. I need to correct some misinformation on both of these cases. We're just briefly going to talk about Melissa first because I am so embarrassed and ashamed that I am responsible for some of this misinformation about Melissa Casillas and I will tell you why. I have since fixed it but I just I feel horrible because obviously my intention is to put out the most accurate information here. So let's just go to this article oops sorry there is an ad that just popped up but this was my article for LA Magazine and this was this was from Thursday June 25th. So I have corrected a headline that previously stated that Melissa Casillas' family dropped the private investigator. I have updated it to parted ways because I received an email and actually a message from a family advocate number one and then someone also close to the case and they were like no the PI actually left or decided to not continue with the case anymore. So that was that was my mistake for saying that he was dropped by the family and sort of inferring that he was replaced with the law firm. That's not accurate. They parted ways. McNally actually decided to not work with the family. I mean I don't know the details but the family praised him and I had stated this in their Facebook post and also I received clarifications from the family that the law firm was hired before McNally had had left the investigation. So everything else in the article though was correct. It was basically just the the headline that was misleading. So I am very sorry and I corrected it immediately and so again I only want to put out verified information. So with that being said I did hear back from Parnall and Adams the law firm last night who said something or a few things I should say that are are kind of concerning here in terms of the investigation into Melissa's death. So the law firm first said and I shouldn't say they first said but this is really what caught my attention. I asked if they had a timeline on the cause and manner of death being determined by the OMI's office which is the office of the medical investigator and they had stated that they did not they did not have a timeline however quote we discovered new evidence that had to be included in that investigation. So of course I was like I know that you can't say anything that would obstruct the investigation or hurt it in any way but can you clarify a little bit are we talking physical evidence? Are we talking forensic? Are we talking circumstantial? Can you tell me something here? They didn't write back but something else they said I'm going to read just this little paragraph they they mentioned to me. They said quote and this is Adam Parnall the partner at Parnall and Adams. He said quote in my experience when I am brought in late in a case and investigative errors have already occurred there is often little that can be done beyond identifying where the investigation fell short and working to ensure law enforcement receives better training particularly around trauma-informed approaches. Wait that's me talking wait. Then he goes on to say quote but this case is different because the investigation is still active there is a real opportunity to review the work being done provide meaningful assistance to law enforcement where needed and help ensure things are handled correctly and at this time we have concerns over such end quote. What I am gathering from this and I want to be careful how I word it here and also seeing the email that I received from a family advocate I think not I think I I believe the the family and and I mean Melissa's parents and her sister and niece that side of the family I think they believed that police didn't initially have any urgency in locating Melissa or really thoroughly investigating the case because I think her husband very much believed the narrative that she left on her own accord and was very steadfast in saying this so obviously police are going to listen to the spouse of the person missing if they're also showing other evidence perhaps that would support that or or maybe not but that's that's all I'm going to say about that I don't I don't know what Mark Casillas told police on on why he believed this but I definitely have admitted this I think I was one of those people at first that was very dismissive of of Melissa's case I was like well she did have financial issues her husband even says this I saw the husband's Facebook post I mean I I literally reported that way and then I started peeling back some of the layers because I was like well wait this this doesn't make sense that doesn't make so truly um you got to go deep on this stuff you got to go deep and I like I said on my last video I am very big on going deeper and and sort of changing my mind on things because I was speaking about Melissa's case under the umbrella of the missing scientists or those connected to national defense that have gone missing or died so I wasn't really going too deep I guess but I was saying well I saw this and this and that kind of made me you know you can't you can't do that I've learned um even with some of the other scientists that have died and I've said well I think it's this I think it's that I mean could it be what it seems to be sure but also could it be deeper yes you have to go deeper to figure this stuff out so um anyway I wanted to put that out there about Melissa and I again you guys know I am I'm staying on the case so with that being said I want to clarify some things about General McCasland so General McCasland most of you know I submitted a FOIA request to the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office and I had my request fulfilled I put out the last known photo of him and uh I got some pretty decent information that hadn't really been reported and I noticed I was was talking to a girl on Twitter a female on Twitter UFO Sarah who also submitted a FOIA request for this information and she reached out to me and she's like hey I don't have the info about the electrician or the solar panel worker and I was like oh really that's weird so I you know I clicked it to her and I sent it and she's like I don't have that uh by the way I did call the electrician or solar panel worker and I didn't get uh they didn't answer the phone I sent a text I didn't hear back so we'll see I basically said I'm not going to say your name I'm not going to send anyone after you I just want to talk to you about this case I'm investigating it and you know um I'll protect your identity whatever but yeah I didn't hear back so anyway so Sarah put out uh some information based on some stuff that she got from a FOIA request basically saying that General McCaffland wanted to put in a resignation for another agency that he was consulting at and this was um this was the so we know he was he was uh on the board at Kirtland Partnerships because and again if you are not if you are not following my coverage of this stuff you have to go to the playlist because you might be a little lost here but we know that he was at dinner with a woman from the Kirtland Partnerships the night before so he was on the board there um but Sarah put out there that he was trying to resign from Riverside Research and Riverside Research has ties to the Department of Defense they have government contracts and I had no idea that he served on the board there it also stated that he served on the board and was paid by Sandia National Labs um and UARC which is a university affiliated research center the university is is not named but I was like I never got these these files that's so weird so I submitted another FOIA request yesterday I've also FOIA'd the FBI I've mentioned that before but I was so confused and so I asked her when was this when was this report from and she said it was from March 3rd so I sent another request and I was looking through this Daily Mail article I was actually asked to report on this article the Daily Mail article on News Nation and I had to say no because number one it wasn't my reporting and I've just I've learned that you really have to dig in and and you know do your own research there because I will also admit that when I was first asked to cover this topic on News Nation I think I've said this before I was very sensational I was all wide-eyed and like wow and you know I still believe in in some of the stuff that I said about you know we we don't know of course it could be the deep state or of course it couldn't um certain things that that I've seen about General McCathlin do reveal more about his declining mental state I will say that but uh regarding the Daily Mail article I reached out to the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office to sort of clarify some things and they sent me an email and they were like this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong I was like okay so um I'm just gonna share this tab and pull it up I'm not gonna have any okay I'm not gonna have any identifying information about the the um officer here like his phone number I mean just you know out of respect but they actually said that some of the stuff in the article they wanted to clarify because it's inaccurate our reports do not reference the Pentagon okay fine I see what the Daily Mail was doing especially as a journalist they said you know secret Pentagon contract they're relate they're they're referring to the Riverside Research Center and the Department of Defense Contracts I don't know if that makes them you know I don't know a secret Pentagon-esque type of contracts but yes that was an exaggeration so he said our reports do not reference the Pentagon they also said we have previously stated that General McCathlin has stepped down from several retiree affiliated working groups due to what he described as quote brain fog okay fine I couldn't find that anywhere in my FOIA request um them saying that he stepped down so I don't I'm not sure I mean he obviously didn't step down from Kirtland he was there the night before I'm not sure if they meant he was attempting to step down but I I just didn't see that anywhere now this says his wife did not state he was desperately doing anything as characterized in the article and that that is true the article did state he was desperately trying to leave these boards he was like they made it definitely made it seem like there was something very nefarious happening and look maybe there was but per all of the reports that I have and per what Sarah put out there it states that he wanted to leave because he could not keep up mentally with the conversation now this is interesting they said they've clarified that his security clearance was a standard retiree clearance this is one of the most important things I believe that they are clearing up because there's been a lot of information or misinformation I should say regarding what type of clearance he held and they are saying that it was standard retiree which does not give you any type of clearance to classified information it just doesn't um don't get mad at me for stating that that's what the police say if you want to think outside the box here um I don't know why they would fabricate that information I mean I I do believe police would have to actually check these these badges and actually cross check with the agencies so you know it is what it is um and then this statement is I don't think it's that important but detective Lucero's involvement within her capacity as a missing persons detective at this time there is no known connection between this case and human trafficking gang activity or other missing scientist cases um so he is saying there is nothing connected to any other missing scientist that's what he's saying the reason he is mentioning the human trafficking and gang activity is because this loose detective Lucero took this statement from Susan McCafflin about the uh him wanting to leave these agencies etc and when um this was stated that she took these these statements it said that she worked in the ghost unit and um it's not all caps it's it's lowercase or not it's you know the g is capitalized and then it's ghost but there's another unit that's like all caps I guess ghost and that is um a human trafficking and gang activity unit so they were just clarifying she just works in missing persons she doesn't work in gang activity or human trafficking and so yeah I'm just putting this out there um they they clearly asked for it to be clarified I just think it's interesting that the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office is is saying that there's no connections to the other missing scientists when how do you know uh are you looking into Monica Reza in California um you know is Bernalillo County working with Los Alamos on Ingrid Lane I mean I'm sure they speak to each other maybe but have you spoken to the FBI about all these cases like I I don't know I I found that to be interesting but you know we'll see we'll see okay I wanted to throw this information out there again I am waiting on other FOIA requests I did do a request for um Anthony Chavez or Tony Chavez the uh HVAC tech that disappeared from Los Alamos in in 2025 and he also worked at Los Alamos National Lab I also FOIA requested for Steven Garcia who disappeared in August of 2025 and he was an employee at the Casey NSC um so we'll see I hope to get those back and I hope to give you this information but yeah I'm kind of like how do you know they're not connected I appreciate the clarifications there but I don't know I just feel like I don't think they've dug in deeply to all of these cases that's all but anyway guys thank you for watching thank you for listening again I try to bring you everything um that that is accurate here everything that is factual I'm Lauren Conlin from Los Angeles Magazine