Party Crews: The Untold Story

Hello, Party Crews Fans! We want to share our new show, "Cold Case Files: Miami."

About the show: Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.

Listen here and subscribe to "Cold Case Files: Miami" on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

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Hello, Party Crews Fans! We want to share our new show, "My Friend Daisy." 

About the show: After 19-year-old Daisy De La O was murdered outside her Compton apartment, her friends and family looked to authorities to make an arrest. When that didn’t happen, they took matters into their own hands. Their secret weapon? TikTok. The online videos spawned an international manhunt, rallying amateur detectives to do something radical: Help catch a killer.

From London Audio, iHeart Radio, and executive producer Paris Hilton, My Friend Daisy is a ten-part investigative series written and hosted by L.A. journalist Jenn Swann. Each episode dives deep into the murder investigation and its fallout, exposing what went wrong, how it went viral, and why American communities are turning to social media to find justice. After 19-year-old Daisy De La O was murdered outside her Compton apartment, her friends and family looked to authorities to make an arrest. When that didn’t happen, they took matters into their own hands. Their secret weapon? TikTok. The online videos spawned an international manhunt, rallying amateur detectives to do something radical: Help catch a killer.

Listen here and subscribe to "My Friend Daisy" on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Photographer Eddie Ruvalcaba started his professional career capturing snapshots of party crews for Street Beat Magazine, an indie magazine for party crew teens of the ‘90s. His photographs have become part of an archive of ‘90s LA Latinx teen life. Thirty years later, Eddie reflects on his beginnings with Street Beat and how photography became a staple in his life.

*A note that Eddie was the staff photographer at Homeboy Industries from 2016-2021, and this interview was recorded in 2021 when he was still on staff. You’ll hear him mention it in the interview. He continues to work as an independent contractor for Homeboy Industries.

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Carribean Fragoza is a writer, artist and co-founder of the South El Monte Arts Posse. She writes about Latinx women and girls whose narratives aren’t always portrayed in the mainstream. In 2014, she wrote a short story for Bomb Magazine titled “The Vicious Ladies'' — inspired by the news coverage surrounding Emmery Muñoz’s real-life party crew following her murder. 

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What does the party crew scene ultimately tell us about what it means to have a safe space - and how might that shape the way Emmery is remembered? Janice looks back and learns that the rosy memories are not the only ones worth remembering.

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In 2022 – more than sixteen years later – we hear from Emmery’s entire family who gather and re-hash more than a decade’s worth of information when an investigator joins the case.

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Before TikTok, Instagram and even – MySpace, party crew teens found ways to create communities online. One of these early social media sites was called Techno4.us — where Janice and Emmery both had profiles once upon a time. In T4’s heyday, party crew kids all over LA and beyond would connect through colorful and chaotic digital profiles where teens were showing their lives uncensored and on their own terms. 

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A year after Emmery’s death, a now-notorious Los Angeles City Council member became interested in her unsolved case and led a rallying cry for LA to crack down on party crews. But the battle between the city and party crews wasn’t new. In this episode, we learn of LAPD’s strategies in the 2000s to police party crews and attempt a citywide crackdown. For the kids, dealing with the cops was just part of being in the scene.

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We go behind-the-scenes in the making of a mid-2000s flier party with an entrepreneurial teen party crew promoter from South Central to understand how parties were major money makers, but more importantly how they were created by kids who wanted to be the architects of their own worlds. Consider this your official invite to a ~*flier party*~. 

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Emmery was last seen on a Friday afternoon in January of 2006. In this episode, we delve into the investigation into Emmery’s unsolved murder. Emmery’s link to the party crew world was part of why her killing got a lot of media attention. But what evidence was there that her murder was tied to party crews? And why is her case still unsolved?

A warning that this episode gets graphic and talks in detail about a violent death.

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