It was the same car had used to drive Shabani away on the day she disappeared. An alert was put out for Spotz's vehicle, a Toyota Tacoma that it turned out was stolen. But Spotz and Elmalak left Los Angeles on March 1 to go to Spotz's family home in Colorado. When authorities were unable to verify Spotz's alibi, they began to suspect he knew more than he was letting on. It's just so sad, we're just hoping she's alive." Something is going on with her, we don't know where she is. All of us love her." Another friend, Emma Joe, agreed there was cause for concern. "We are scared, but we are praying," Christian Name told KABC 11 days after Shabani's disappearance. On March 10, 2018, dozens of volunteers searched a Northern California woodland, but came up empty handed. Shabani's 26th birthday came and went with no sign of her. The search intensified-Shabani's mother flew in from Macedonia and the streets of Hollywood were plastered with fliers offering a $25,000 reward for information about her disappearance. That, Spotz insisted, was the last time he saw Adea Shabani.Ĭhris Spotz is pictured with Adea Shabani. He admitted to police he had left with Shabani to drive to Northern California, but claimed the pair had an argument and he let Shabani out of the car in Santa Clarita, just 25 miles from her home, and drove away. As the last person seen with her, Spotz was immediately a suspect. Police found Shabani's apartment unlocked, which was unusual for her, with signs her laptop had been used the evening of her disappearance, long after Shabani had stopped contacting friends and family. "Everyone wanted to go looking for her-just do whatever we could." Read More: 50 Fascinating True Crime Podcasts You Need To HearĬlassmate Geoffrey Scholl told Dateline the class became anxious when she didn't show up. Friends-and the school record-indicate she was not a person who missed class. and said she was seeking a large role in that class. "That was the first class of that semester when they were assigning roles," Jayden Bryant, a private investigator hired by the Shabani family, told Dateline. But the following Monday Shabani missed an important acting class. At first friends hoped she had just gone on a weekend trip. She was reported missing two days after her last communication and the LAPD began an investigation. Shabani was an avid texter, so her friends and family soon grew worried. She sent her last text about that time, asking a friend where she could buy red candles. The pair were caught by security cameras in her building elevator-both were wearing baseball caps and Shabani was carrying two pieces of luggage. On Friday, February 23, 2018, Shabani left her apartment with Spotz around noon. What happened the day Adea Shabani disappeared? He and Elmalak apparently had been dating for years and while Shabani knew about this relationship, it's not clear how much Elmalak knew about Shabani. The couple's relationship was not straightforward: Spotz was apparently still engaged to another woman, identified online as Mary Elmalak, when he was with Shabani. "And I know she wanted to finish school to be well prepared." Name described Shabani as "very funny and a great friend," who was both "energetic" and "empathic." "She was very serious about her career," friend Christian Name told Dateline. From the outside, she appeared to be a happy young woman enjoying her life and chasing the Hollywood dream.Īt the time of her disappearance, Shabani was studying at the renowned Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
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Her apartment was decorated with fresh flowers and pictures of Leonardo diCaprio and other movie idols. She gave me good laundry tips and she was just a delightful spunky gal." I would see her in the elevator, in the laundry room. "It's just very haunting and sad because she just had great energy," neighbor Krysi Newman told CBS. People who knew Shabani remember her as a lively, engaging woman with a warm presence. Dreamy kids become actors don't they?" That same year, Shabani posed next to a giant print of a skyline, emblazoned with the words: "I'm going to be a very different kind of star." A hazy, sunlit Facebook profile picture from 2016 included a quote from actor Michael Gambon: "Like a heartbeat. Slender, with a 5' 5" frame, blond hair and blue eyes, Shabani looked every bit the starlet. and pursue her childhood dream of acting. After a stint working in a jewelry store in Dubai, Shabani decided to move to L.A. a 2012 photo shows her posing with Kanye West in a Las Vegas nightclub. By the time she graduated in 2014, Shabani had already made at least one trip to the U.S. Adea Shabani Who was Adea Shabani?Īdea Shabani attended an international school in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, before moving to France and studying business administration at the American University of Paris.
“It’s just very haunting and sad because she just had great energy,” neighbor Krysi Newman told CBS after Shabani’s disappearance.