Speaker 1: This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2: This story can be hard to hear. There's detailed talk
Speaker 2: of suicide and violence, but we think it's important not
Speaker 2: to gloss over the reality of what happened to Libby Caswell.
Speaker 2: Please take care while listening.
Speaker 3: I cared about Elizabeth more than any human being on
Speaker 3: this plane.
Speaker 4: She was going to be my wife, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 5: We were supposed to be together.
Speaker 2: You're hearing the voice of Devon Martin, a voice you
Speaker 2: might have noticed has been largely absent from the series
Speaker 2: so far. It's not for lack of trying. For the
Speaker 2: past year and a half, I've made numerous attempts to
Speaker 2: speak with Devon, sending him emails and reaching out over
Speaker 2: social media, letting him know I was making a show
Speaker 2: about Libby and that I wanted his side of the story.
Speaker 2: I know he's received my messages, but I've never heard
Speaker 2: anything back. His mom Mindy said he didn't want to
Speaker 2: talk to me. What I do have of Devin's voice
Speaker 2: is the nine one one call and the two interviews
Speaker 2: he's done with the Independence Police Department, one in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: right after Libby's death, and then one two years later,
Speaker 2: and it's in that second interview where he gets more personal.
Speaker 3: I'm hearing that's turning on the inside.
Speaker 6: I've I've not had day experience all of this.
Speaker 5: I get that. I can tell that you're heard.
Speaker 4: I get that, okay, And.
Speaker 5: I'm still dealing with this year and it's been almost
Speaker 5: two years.
Speaker 1: It's almost been two years.
Speaker 4: I lost my son's man and I almost lost myself.
Speaker 7: Almost this to be old boy.
Speaker 2: I want my life back.
Speaker 5: Phobe Caswell was loved by so many people.
Speaker 4: No one wanted to believe that she would ever do
Speaker 4: anything like that to herself because no one could believe that.
Speaker 6: I look at us. We was the fucking We was
Speaker 6: the king and queen and fucking in high school.
Speaker 8: That's what we did. I was a job, She was
Speaker 8: a and a cheerleader.
Speaker 4: And that's everyone out now.
Speaker 5: So I'm looking at him.
Speaker 1: It was the perfect couple.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants to believe that shit happened.
Speaker 5: I should have fucked up, but it is what it is.
Speaker 3: That is what happened.
Speaker 6: This shit is fucking ruining my life and people need
Speaker 6: to leave me alone. And that's how I feel about
Speaker 6: it because I'm the one who lost someone.
Speaker 2: Generally to me, there's so much I'd like to talk
Speaker 2: to Devin about, not just what happened the night Libby died.
Speaker 2: Devan has always maintained his innocence. I don't think he'd
Speaker 2: give me a different account. And not just his perspective
Speaker 2: on his and Libby's relationship, the allegations of domestic violence,
Speaker 2: the drug use. But I'd also like to hear from
Speaker 2: Devin about his life and how he grew up, because,
Speaker 2: as I've come to understand, it wasn't easy.
Speaker 5: I watched my mother did use my entire childhood. I've
Speaker 5: been around my whole life. I was picking my mom
Speaker 5: about the floor, needle was hanging.
Speaker 4: Out her arm when I was five years old.
Speaker 7: I know what the ship brings.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Even if Devon won't talk to me, I still want
Speaker 2: to try to paint a fair portrait because just as
Speaker 2: Libby's story didn't happen in a vacuum, neither did Devon's.
Speaker 2: In his absence, I've spoken to people close to him,
Speaker 2: including his mom, his stepmom, and his sister. These are
Speaker 2: women who love Devon, who support Devon, who admit he's
Speaker 2: a complicated character, but who also wholeheartedly believe that he
Speaker 2: is not responsible for Libby's death.
Speaker 9: My son did not murder Libby. There's no way he
Speaker 9: could live with himself and just live live if he
Speaker 9: had done something like that. I know he couldn't.
Speaker 7: I know they did some gun things together, and you know,
Speaker 7: made some bad choices together. But in my heart a heart,
Speaker 7: I don't believe that that boy did that.
Speaker 3: I feel it in my heart. And if I'm long,
Speaker 3: then I'm wrong. But then I guess I wouldn't know
Speaker 3: my brother.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a fuzzo.
Speaker 9: So what she.
Speaker 2: From iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is what
Speaker 2: happened to Libby Caswell Ocus.
Speaker 1: She didn't ever tell me the extent of all the
Speaker 1: things that happened, you know, I had to find out
Speaker 1: after her death.
Speaker 4: So was she on her back and he was like
Speaker 4: straddling her? Yes, okay? And he had his hands around
Speaker 4: her throat?
Speaker 1: Yes, they were, you know, young puppy love. It was
Speaker 1: always oh, babe, babe bat Man.
Speaker 4: A stupid nickname is the Big Collie.
Speaker 7: He really went off the rails with nuts. Like some
Speaker 7: people go off the rails, some people don't.
Speaker 2: Chapter seven Black shadows are never good. For most of
Speaker 2: the time I've been reporting on Libby, Devon has been
Speaker 2: in prison in Kansas, serving time on a drug charge.
Speaker 2: He was recently released and paroled back to Missouri. In
Speaker 2: and out of jail, This is a pattern for Devon
Speaker 2: that stretches back years. It's hard to get a complete
Speaker 2: picture as his offenses cover multiple states and counties, but
Speaker 2: as far as I can tell, Devon has had dozens
Speaker 2: and dozens of encounters with police since the age of seventeen,
Speaker 2: many of them related to drugs and theft. The summer
Speaker 2: before Libby died, he had gotten in enough trouble that
Speaker 2: he was included on the ipd's monthly Most Active Core
Speaker 2: Offenders list. His mugshot was one of ten emailed to
Speaker 2: the entire department alerting them of his recent arrests for burglary, assault,
Speaker 2: and disturbance. It noted that he was quote physically violent.
Speaker 2: According to IPD, the people added to this list were
Speaker 2: the ones with the most frequent and recent police contact.
Speaker 2: They were then targeted by IPD for quote proactive enforcement
Speaker 2: and by county prosecutors for potential legal action. So how
Speaker 2: did Devon end up on this list? At age twenty one.
Speaker 2: More importantly, I wanted to find out how did this
Speaker 2: pattern begin.
Speaker 9: At Devon's request, A didn't want adopting that I don't
Speaker 9: care if he gets mad at me for the rest
Speaker 9: of his life. I feel like I need.
Speaker 2: To talk to It took me more than a year
Speaker 2: of trying before Devn's mom, Mindy, finally agreed to talk
Speaker 2: to me to help me fill in the blanks in
Speaker 2: Devon's backstory. Once I got her on the phone, she
Speaker 2: was surprisingly open and eager to share about her own
Speaker 2: life and about Devon's childhood.
Speaker 9: His father and I both had such as abuse problem.
Speaker 9: His father and I stayed together until he was I
Speaker 9: want to say, four or five, and then we finally split.
Speaker 2: Mindy says after they broke up, Devn initially stayed with
Speaker 2: her and his half sister, Roxanne, who was seven years
Speaker 2: older than Devin, and with Mindy working, it was often
Speaker 2: Roxanne who had to care for her little brother.
Speaker 3: She was making the money whatever, saying care of us,
Speaker 3: that I was the one that always did a laundry,
Speaker 3: made sure Devin was like give him bath, you know,
Speaker 3: like all the kind of stuff. If anybody knows Devin
Speaker 3: it's me because I'm the one that raised him.
Speaker 2: Roxanne told me it took her a while to recognize
Speaker 2: science of her mom's drug abuse. As I got.
Speaker 3: Older, I realized she still was getting high because later
Speaker 3: on in my life I got high. And I know
Speaker 3: what it is now, like seeing her in the bedroom
Speaker 3: smoking cigarettes and then coloring fuzzy posters, falling asleep, like
Speaker 3: burning her blankets, you know, like because he's falling out, you.
Speaker 2: Know, mindy. Devin's mom told me that she struggled with
Speaker 2: methamphetomine throughout her life. One relapse happened when Devon was
Speaker 2: about eight.
Speaker 9: I had been claiming for seven years, seven and a
Speaker 9: half years, and I fell off the wagon, lost my job,
Speaker 9: and was losing my apartment, and so he went with
Speaker 9: his father, who I believed was plain.
Speaker 2: I asked her specifically how witnessing drug use at home
Speaker 2: might have impacted Devon.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm sure it affected him tremendously. He's not ever
Speaker 9: said anything to me, so that I'm not saying it
Speaker 9: didn't happen by no means. I'm sure it probably did,
Speaker 9: But I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: What it's all, you know, Devin seems to have spent
Speaker 2: most of his elementary school years with his mom, and
Speaker 2: his middle school years with his dad and his stepmom,
Speaker 2: who have since split up. Devn's dad, Charlie, hasn't wanted
Speaker 2: to speak with me about his son. However, I did
Speaker 2: manage to get a hold of Devin's stepmom, Jamie. Do
Speaker 2: you know you know, had there been any physical violence
Speaker 2: or emotional abuse in either of the households that he
Speaker 2: grew up in.
Speaker 7: No, it never got physical, but I think that marble
Speaker 7: is probably what he dealt with.
Speaker 2: Jamie is adamant that the periods Devin lived with his
Speaker 2: dad and her, they were sober and stable, but when
Speaker 2: she thinks about the other years when she wasn't around,
Speaker 2: it's trickier.
Speaker 4: Would you say that Devin experienced a lot of trauma
Speaker 4: as a child, I.
Speaker 7: Would say possibly. I don't know if trauma is the
Speaker 7: right word, but I would say he experienced, like maybe
Speaker 7: some abandonment issues.
Speaker 2: As Devin entered his teens, he began clashing with his father, and,
Speaker 2: according to his mom, Mindy, his dad pulled away.
Speaker 9: When he was fourteen. Devin called me from school one
Speaker 9: day and said, Mom, come to get me. And I
Speaker 9: said what said, your dad's never going to let me
Speaker 9: come and get you what he's talking about. Charlie signed
Speaker 9: a piece of paper saying he was siying his rights
Speaker 9: over to me. We didn't go to court with it
Speaker 9: or anything. But he did that in front of Devon,
Speaker 9: and that affected Devon tremendously. I cried for Devin when
Speaker 9: his father did that.
Speaker 2: I also found out that for some stretch of his
Speaker 2: teen years, Devin lived in a boy's home. He kept
Speaker 2: running away. Trauma, abuse, abandonment. Those are difficult terms to
Speaker 2: say out loud, especially when it's about someone you care about,
Speaker 2: when it feels personal. I understood why Jamie was hesitant
Speaker 2: to label Devin's experience, but when I prodded her on specifics,
Speaker 2: like the drug abuse he has described seeing as a kid,
Speaker 2: her tone changed.
Speaker 7: I do believe that he Uh, I guess that would
Speaker 7: be trauma.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do.
Speaker 7: I know that he experienced seeing some things that he
Speaker 7: probably shouldn't have seen, or I know that he shouldn't
Speaker 7: have seen and probably heard some heard things that he
Speaker 7: should not have heard. Yes, I will agree to that.
Speaker 2: In my years reporting on men who are violent towards
Speaker 2: their partners, some similarities have emerged. It's cliche to say
Speaker 2: hurt people hurt people, but it's often true, and it's
Speaker 2: especially true of kids who grow up neglected or witness
Speaker 2: or experience emotional or physical abuse as they grow older.
Speaker 2: Not only are these kids more likely to have problems
Speaker 2: with substance abuse, they are also more likely to either
Speaker 2: perpetrate or be a victim of violence in their own
Speaker 2: intimate relationships.
Speaker 10: Okay, so the brain is extraordinarily complex and we know
Speaker 10: a lot about it, but there's way, way, way more
Speaker 10: that we don't know.
Speaker 2: Diane Vins is a family therapist who specializes in how
Speaker 2: trauma can affect neurodevelopment, or the way the young brain
Speaker 2: builds pathways for things like learning, focus, and social skills.
Speaker 2: She isn't Devin's therapist, doesn't know his case, but I
Speaker 2: asked her to talk broadly about how childhood trauma can
Speaker 2: translate into behavioral patterns.
Speaker 10: When your brain perceives that you are under threat, it
Speaker 10: mounts a stress response, so a lot of things happen.
Speaker 10: You are more likely, because of the way your brain
Speaker 10: is wired to help you either fight, flight, freeze, faint,
Speaker 10: more likely to engage in behaviors that are unhealthy, like
Speaker 10: more drinking, more smoking, illicit drugs, you know, casual, dangerous sex,
Speaker 10: all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: Vine says that some children learn to cope with trauma
Speaker 2: in unhealthy ways that carry over into adulthood.
Speaker 10: People think about abuse, and then they think about neglect,
Speaker 10: and very often neglect is even worse. You learn not
Speaker 10: to trust people when you grow up in that kind
Speaker 10: of house where there are no adults who are emotionally
Speaker 10: present for you. In order to get any needs met,
Speaker 10: you're going to have to manipulate people and situations just
Speaker 10: to get basic needs met, because you can't just simply ask,
Speaker 10: so you basically train to be manipulative just to survive.
Speaker 10: That's a pretty eas connection to make. People who have
Speaker 10: not been supported by people don't trust people. They take
Speaker 10: what they need, They use people the way they need to,
Speaker 10: and they discard the rest. They don't let people get
Speaker 10: close to them, because people get close hurt.
Speaker 2: From what I've gathered, it doesn't seem like Devon had
Speaker 2: many supports in place to handle the challenges he was
Speaker 2: facing as a young boy. It's not surprising, perhaps that
Speaker 2: as Devin went from kid to teen, he turned to
Speaker 2: a thing that was readily available, something he'd seen in
Speaker 2: his own home, something he'd been trying his whole life
Speaker 2: to avoid.
Speaker 3: I yet telling me, yeah, no, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: do that, Christine, I don't want. I see what my
Speaker 3: dad's falling through, and I see what my mom does.
Speaker 2: I talked to Christine, a woman an independence whose daughter
Speaker 2: dated Devon in eighth and ninth grade before he dated Libby.
Speaker 9: For the most part, he was a really polite kid,
Speaker 9: always saying yes sir, yes ma'am, please say you.
Speaker 1: He was a hard worker anytime we were.
Speaker 8: Good, and any kind of work with the how he
Speaker 8: helped us with that.
Speaker 2: Christine had memories of going to his wrestling matches in
Speaker 2: football games, where Devin showed a lot of talent. She
Speaker 2: and Devin spoke often too, and despite his home life,
Speaker 2: he seemed okay, but she soon started to worry for him.
Speaker 7: In ninth grade, I could tell Devon was starting to separate.
Speaker 9: I could see it. I knew it was coming, and
Speaker 9: I had talked to him and talked to him and
Speaker 9: kept trying to encouraging.
Speaker 2: I'm like, don't.
Speaker 7: Devin, it's all bad, you know, And He's like, I know,
Speaker 7: I know.
Speaker 8: My mom talks about the black shadows that haunt her
Speaker 8: when she does her drugs, and I'm like, see, you
Speaker 8: don't want.
Speaker 2: To do that.
Speaker 5: I said, that's not good.
Speaker 4: Black shadows are never good.
Speaker 2: At some point, Devin began to use meth, the drug
Speaker 2: that it plagued the city of Independence, the drug that
Speaker 2: had wreaked havoc on his childhood homes. And after that
Speaker 2: things changed. He dropped out of school. No more wrestling,
Speaker 2: no more football, no more polite, helpful kid. Meth caught
Speaker 2: up with his sister, Roxanne too. She told me that
Speaker 2: it was her goal as a child to avoid following
Speaker 2: the same path as her mom, Mindy, but ultimately meth
Speaker 2: was just there.
Speaker 3: I always told myself I was never going to do
Speaker 3: what she did, you know, But then like I got
Speaker 3: so tired of it, and I just I wanted to
Speaker 3: try it because I wanted to know why she wouldn't
Speaker 3: stop to be there for us kids, you know.
Speaker 2: Diane Vines told me that it's common for people who've
Speaker 2: experienced high levels of childhood trauma to struggle with drugs alcohol.
Speaker 10: I think they're self medicating, to be honest. You know,
Speaker 10: when your body's feeling that tense and that and you're
Speaker 10: that upset and you can't get those thoughts to stop.
Speaker 10: Sometimes for often if you take us up sence, it'll
Speaker 10: stop for a while. So if you can get that
Speaker 10: dopamine hit that you can't get from people and that
Speaker 10: you need so that you relieve that physiological distress, that's
Speaker 10: very often what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Roxanne admitted that this was one reason why she and
Speaker 2: Devin used drugs often together.
Speaker 10: There would be.
Speaker 3: Times to where it's like, you know, like we'd be
Speaker 3: sitting there crying with each other and then it's like
Speaker 3: we hate our lives and it's as ridiculous. So it
Speaker 3: sounds like we both sit there and cry together, and
Speaker 3: then like right after we say all that stuff there,
Speaker 3: we go light up a bowl, you know, because it's
Speaker 3: it's like the only thing that would just make us
Speaker 3: stop crying or feeling anything, you know. I didn't want
Speaker 3: my life to turn out how it was and how
Speaker 3: it is, and he didn't either.
Speaker 7: I was at Charlie's apartment and I heard somebody out
Speaker 7: in the living them night came up out of this
Speaker 7: because I heard Devin was like, I just tell him
Speaker 7: be dead.
Speaker 4: I just tell Lidy.
Speaker 2: Jamie Devins stepmom, remember seeing Devon on that day, December eleventh,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen. She and Charlie had split up by then,
Speaker 2: but she said she was over at his apartment. In
Speaker 2: her recollection, it was evening, but she admits she'd been
Speaker 2: using drugs at the time, so her memory is a
Speaker 2: little hazy still. She can't forget how Devin was acting.
Speaker 7: But look on his face. He was terrified. I remember
Speaker 7: being terrified, and he was shaken, and he said he
Speaker 7: would just found her. And he's in panic mode, straight
Speaker 7: panic grady that he founder and called Lie on one
Speaker 7: and he left.
Speaker 2: This, of course, is also the same story that Devin
Speaker 2: told police the night of Libby's death. Jamie couldn't remember
Speaker 2: any other details from that night, including Devin's phone call
Speaker 2: from jail, where he seemingly asked her and Charlie to
Speaker 2: tell police had been at their house. But Jamie told
Speaker 2: me she is convinced that Devin's story is true, and
Speaker 2: points to the fact that in twenty nineteen, IPD interviewed
Speaker 2: him again and offered up a polygraph.
Speaker 3: There is a way that you can show me that
Speaker 3: you did didn't do this five to take throughs and
Speaker 3: how you're asking me is right.
Speaker 4: Now, would you take one? Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Would you pass it?
Speaker 3: No question?
Speaker 5: Absolutely? I mean if you passed, that would settle this.
Speaker 6: Well, let's go, what have you failing?
Speaker 7: There's no, that's not an option.
Speaker 2: Devin eventually took the polygraph, and he did pass, but
Speaker 2: the idea that the results could quote settle the issue
Speaker 2: of whether Devon was involved in Libby's death wasn't actually true.
Speaker 2: Polygraphs have long been discredited because they're just not accurate,
Speaker 2: and their results are no longer admissible in court. These days,
Speaker 2: police use the polygraph mostly as an investigative tactic, a
Speaker 2: way to put pressure on a suspect to confess. Still,
Speaker 2: voluntarily taking and passing the polygraph was important to Devon
Speaker 2: and his family. They saw it as proof of his innocence,
Speaker 2: something that showed just how far he had gone to
Speaker 2: clear his name.
Speaker 3: He had went through my detager tests and stuff, and
Speaker 3: he passed them, and all of this still was out there.
Speaker 2: Devin's sister, Roxanne, was upset about continued accusations against her
Speaker 2: brother and about something Cindy did. Shortly after Libby's death.
Speaker 2: She'd put up posters around Independence asking for information. The
Speaker 2: posters included photos of Devon and Libby and the text
Speaker 2: quote last scene with the mail above.
Speaker 3: We were walking at that little hotdog store. I seen
Speaker 3: my brother's face on a fire on their window, and
Speaker 3: Cindy was like posting all of these things out there
Speaker 3: saying that he was a murderer and if you see him,
Speaker 3: report blah blah blah blah blah. How can you call
Speaker 3: somebody a murderer when they're not even convicted or charged
Speaker 3: or anything, you know.
Speaker 9: I understand her drive that. I feel like she is
Speaker 9: looking at the wrong person.
Speaker 2: Devin's mom Mindy, despite everything, actually has a lot of
Speaker 2: empathy for Cindy.
Speaker 9: I tried to talk to Cindy after passed. I wanted
Speaker 9: to tell her and I still do that I am
Speaker 9: so sorry for what happened. I couldn't imagine living a child.
Speaker 9: I couldn't imagine it.
Speaker 2: Cindy's not the only one hurting. Devon's family says that
Speaker 2: losing Libby has been immensely painful for Devon, and especially
Speaker 2: in the immediate aftermath of Libby's death, Mindy worried for
Speaker 2: her son's sanity.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry this is hard for me because I loved Libby.
Speaker 9: She was a part of our family for a long time.
Speaker 9: I remember thinking, I hate that that's the last vision he.
Speaker 2: Will have of her forever.
Speaker 9: You know, after Libby, he was lost for a long time.
Speaker 9: When Libby died, Devon was just lost.
Speaker 2: Devin himself said as much in his second interview with
Speaker 2: IPD in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: Myself that day, truth, I has never been than that
Speaker 5: I talk about Let's suicide was on my mind any.
Speaker 4: After that stuff happened, because I didn't want.
Speaker 5: To be alive, but I knew our friend needed somebody
Speaker 5: and that's the only.
Speaker 4: Reason that I'm still here.
Speaker 2: And his stepmom Jamie saw the change in him too.
Speaker 7: He didn't care what happened to him after Levy had died,
Speaker 7: because he lost the love of his life.
Speaker 2: This attitude is reflected in his arrests and interactions with
Speaker 2: the police the summer before Libby's death. Devon may have
Speaker 2: been one of the ipd's most active Corps offenders, but
Speaker 2: in the years following Libby's death, Devin seemed to go
Speaker 2: on a crime spree, accruing multiple convictions possession of a
Speaker 2: controlled substance, tampering with a motor vehicle, stealing, two counts
Speaker 2: of resisting arrest, and that was just in the state
Speaker 2: of Missouri. In nearby Kansas, I can identify even more
Speaker 2: by any measure, Devon was clearly struggling.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so he was ribbon and roaring through people's life.
Speaker 7: Didn't care if you dying, He didn't care what happened
Speaker 7: to himself.
Speaker 2: Of course, you can analyze this behavior in a number
Speaker 2: of ways. On one hand, this recklessness, this hopeless disorientation,
Speaker 2: could be a sign of guilt. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: it could be a response to an all consuming grief,
Speaker 2: And the latter is what Devon's family holds onto. The
Speaker 2: women I interviewed made it clear that they believe that
Speaker 2: Devon was not responsible for Libby's death. I asked Roxanne
Speaker 2: directly about this.
Speaker 4: Are you one hundred percenter in that she died by
Speaker 4: suicide and that no one else was involved?
Speaker 3: How can anybody be one hundred percent certain?
Speaker 4: Do you have any suspicions that Devon might have been involved?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not, absolutely not, Like they loved each other like
Speaker 3: like no other I do. I think I know he
Speaker 3: did not do anything to her.
Speaker 2: But when I asked them about physical violence prior to
Speaker 2: Louby's death, the physical violence that so many people have
Speaker 2: alleged happened in the relationship. They're decidedly less certain. Here's Jamie.
Speaker 7: I did not see any violence between the two of them,
Speaker 7: but I did hear of it, And when I left
Speaker 7: Devin's father, I went about my own way, so I
Speaker 7: wasn't there for the worst part of it. Of the relationship.
Speaker 7: They just never got like that in front of me,
Speaker 7: So it's hard for me to think that he is
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 2: Mindy, Devin's mom, conceded the relationship did involve some abuse,
Speaker 2: just of a different kind.
Speaker 9: I mean, my son emotionally abused her. I witnessed that,
Speaker 9: but I never witnessed any physical abuse from Devin to
Speaker 9: her besides maybe restraining her. You know, they fought a lot,
Speaker 9: and a lot of the physical part actually was from Livvy,
Speaker 9: you know, and she was a feisy little thing.
Speaker 2: But Mindy admitted there may have been things she hadn't seen.
Speaker 9: Behind closed doors. You know, nobody really knows, honestly, and
Speaker 9: with drugs involved. I mean, I've experienced it myself. You know,
Speaker 9: I've lived here it.
Speaker 2: Myself, Mindy, Roxanne, Jamie. Their responses don't entirely surprise me.
Speaker 2: In my many years reporting on domestic violence, I've interacted
Speaker 2: with a lot of family members of men accused of
Speaker 2: hurting their partners, and by and large, they tend not
Speaker 2: to believe the allegations of abuse, regardless of the strength
Speaker 2: of the evidence in front of them. Denial is a
Speaker 2: powerful coping mechanism. It allows us to without having to
Speaker 2: critically examine the past and our roles in it. I
Speaker 2: saw an example of this denial in my conversation with
Speaker 2: Roxanne when I asked her about the alleged strangulation of
Speaker 2: Libby that occurred one week before her death, the strangulation
Speaker 2: that was witnessed by Gary Stevens. She told me she
Speaker 2: thought Gary had made it up.
Speaker 4: So do you not believe that he's telling the truth?
Speaker 3: No? No, Why would anybody in their right mind like
Speaker 3: allow a man that is supposedly choking this chick leaves
Speaker 3: together and then not report it until after she dead.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you, I've interviewed him and his story is
Speaker 4: very credible to me, Like he cares about Devin, and
Speaker 4: he's very conflicted that he you know that he had
Speaker 4: to go to the police and report what he saw.
Speaker 2: But later in our conversation, she conceded that it was
Speaker 2: possible Gary was telling the truth. The more we talked,
Speaker 2: she backed off her black and white response to the
Speaker 2: accusations about Devon's behavior and seemed open to exploring the
Speaker 2: uncomfortable gray area of domestic violence. In fact, Roxane recognized
Speaker 2: a similarity between Devon and Libby's relationship and the one
Speaker 2: she herself had been in back then, a relationship that
Speaker 2: she acknowledged wasn't especially healthy.
Speaker 3: In both of our relationships, they're not in abusive ways,
Speaker 3: but they give us toxic more mental you know, like
Speaker 3: menernal sociopath my manipulating gas lighting masters is what I
Speaker 3: call them.
Speaker 4: So that could be considered like emotional abuse. There's certainly
Speaker 4: different different ways that people can hurt their partner. That's
Speaker 4: not only physical, and.
Speaker 3: Even emotional you know, can turn into physical, like in
Speaker 3: your body, you know what I mean, Like it can
Speaker 3: make you make you sick, you know.
Speaker 2: Roxanne had been shocked when she heard the story that
Speaker 2: Libby had died by suicide. She too had seen how
Speaker 2: much Libby loved Xavier and how dedicated she was to
Speaker 2: her son. But Roxanne also believed the toxicity of Libby
Speaker 2: and Devon's relationship could have been partially responsible.
Speaker 4: So are you saying that you believe she might have
Speaker 4: been driven to suicide because you know there was so
Speaker 4: much like emotional abuse and stuff going on in her.
Speaker 3: Relationships with dev Yes, that's the first thought that came
Speaker 3: into my head, was that she was just so tired
Speaker 3: of being tired of having to keep up with Devon
Speaker 3: just to feel loved and to love him.
Speaker 2: Roxanne told me she could imagine why Libby might have
Speaker 2: felt like this because it's something she had felt too
Speaker 2: in her relationship with her ex boyfriend.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna try, but it's right. I have tried most
Speaker 3: of the time taking myself because I loved him so much,
Speaker 3: and then he just wouldn't stop doing drugs.
Speaker 6: You know, probably the most surprising thing is that we
Speaker 6: keep looking for conscious intent. You know, we keep thinking, well,
Speaker 6: abusers must know what they're doing, they're consciously setting about
Speaker 6: to be controlling and domineering. I don't think it operates
Speaker 6: at that level.
Speaker 2: This is David Adams, a psychologist and co founder of Emerge,
Speaker 2: the first counseling program in the nation for men who
Speaker 2: abuse women.
Speaker 6: Most abusive men in my experience somehow think of themselves
Speaker 6: as victims. And it all comes from this sort of
Speaker 6: self centered orientation. And these are men who are being
Speaker 6: extremely controlling and domineering, and yet they somehow manage to
Speaker 6: think of themselves as victims.
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to David Adams because, just as
Speaker 2: it's important to work on improving the systems of support
Speaker 2: for victims of domestic violence, I also believe people who
Speaker 2: use violence against their partners deserve help too. They often
Speaker 2: have their own trauma to process, their own struggles to overcome,
Speaker 2: and if we truly want to end the cycle of violence,
Speaker 2: we can't afford to ignore those who perpetrate it. We
Speaker 2: don't have reliable statistics on how many men commit domestic
Speaker 2: violence in the US, but we know it's a staggeringly
Speaker 2: large number. Consider that, according to the CDC, one in
Speaker 2: four women will experience physical violence by their intimate partner
Speaker 2: at some point during their lifetime. Back in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: when David Adams first began working with this population of men,
Speaker 2: the US was finally beginning to reckon with the pervasiveness
Speaker 2: of domestic violence and the permissive culture that allowed it
Speaker 2: to thrive. States began to develop specific laws that criminalized
Speaker 2: abusive behavior. The first shelters opened for victims, but for
Speaker 2: men who were using violence, there were very few options
Speaker 2: beyond jail, and that's where a merge came in.
Speaker 6: The founders of were merged or ten men. Some of
Speaker 6: us were social workers just fresh out of graduate school.
Speaker 6: Some of us were teachers. I think we had one
Speaker 6: taxi driver. What we had in common was that we
Speaker 6: had female friends who had been involved in establishing some
Speaker 6: of the first so called battered women's programs. Our friends
Speaker 6: would tell us that they would get calls on their
Speaker 6: hotlines from men, and these were abusive men, and they
Speaker 6: were actually seeking help. And the women didn't feel it
Speaker 6: was their responsibility to help the abuser, but they still
Speaker 6: felt that there should be some sort of help available.
Speaker 6: So they asked us, as a group of men that
Speaker 6: they knew and trusted, would we be willing to take
Speaker 6: this on.
Speaker 2: David and his friends did take it on, but in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven, there was very little research to guide
Speaker 2: their approach. They spoke with a bunch of women who'd
Speaker 2: been abused, and one of them gave them something that
Speaker 2: shifted how they'd been thinking about the issue.
Speaker 6: One of the women actually had encouraged her abusive partner
Speaker 6: to send an audio tape to us, and so one
Speaker 6: evening we sat around listening to this hour and a
Speaker 6: half audiotape in which he was apologizing. I think he
Speaker 6: was desperate to be back in the relationship with her.
Speaker 6: But what was really interesting to us was that his
Speaker 6: pologies pretty quickly turned to making excuses for his abusive
Speaker 6: behavior and even romanticizing his abusive behavior, that somehow his
Speaker 6: feelings are so strong, you know, the loves are so
Speaker 6: strongly that his jealousy comes out. That was eye opening
Speaker 6: for us because we were very naive about domestic violence,
Speaker 6: and we thought, well, well, just tell them that it's wrong, right,
Speaker 6: And so this kind of introduced us to the idea
Speaker 6: that it was a lot more complicated. There was not
Speaker 6: just the abusive behavior, but there was ways that it
Speaker 6: was justified and rationalized.
Speaker 2: The intervention program that developed from these conversations decades ago
Speaker 2: has been refined over time. Emerge is now a forty
Speaker 2: week program where men meet regularly to discuss their history
Speaker 2: with violence and work on developing critical skills to change
Speaker 2: their behavior. About half of the men who participate are
Speaker 2: court mandated the other half show up of their own accord.
Speaker 2: Emerge has two cornerstones, respect and empathy, both their skills
Speaker 2: Adams believe can be taught. In weekly sessions. The men
Speaker 2: do exercises to model respectful behavior and learn how to
Speaker 2: empathize with their partners and the pain they endured as
Speaker 2: a result of the abuse. I wanted to speak directly
Speaker 2: to someone who'd used violence against their partner and was
Speaker 2: working to address their issues, and so David Adams connected
Speaker 2: me to an emerged participant who was willing to share
Speaker 2: his experience. His name is Tyler. He's twenty four and
Speaker 2: works in a restaurant in Massachusetts.
Speaker 5: Me and by a girlfriend at the time got into
Speaker 5: an argument because I suspected her cheating, and instead of
Speaker 5: having a full conversation about it and Peter Rachel, I
Speaker 5: just kind of acted out fully and so he went
Speaker 5: to angry. Didn't have any other emotion other than that.
Speaker 5: So I started yelling me, I started throwing things, I
Speaker 5: pushed her, and I just kept escalating from there and
Speaker 5: I ended up breaking her phone. She had cuts on
Speaker 5: her hand. I grabbed her throat for a second and
Speaker 5: into let go.
Speaker 2: Tyler was arrested, charged and convicted of domestic violence. As
Speaker 2: part of his sentence, he is mandated to attend forty
Speaker 2: weeks of Emerge. At the time I spoke with him
Speaker 2: on the phone during a work break, he had been
Speaker 2: in the program for sixteen weeks.
Speaker 5: It brings up a lot from like my child is
Speaker 5: seeing the best aside from my father and my mother,
Speaker 5: and hearing everywhere else's stories. Yeah, there was quite a
Speaker 5: bit of trauma in my life as a kid. I
Speaker 5: was molested, was taking advantage by multiple people in my family.
Speaker 5: It was kind of all just, yeah, everything round after another.
Speaker 2: Tyler said the men in the group had a lot
Speaker 2: in common, especially as they looked back on their upbringings.
Speaker 5: It's like me realizing that, hey, I've been around in
Speaker 5: my whole life. I've never really realized it. But hearing
Speaker 5: everyone's different story kind of brings up late. Okay, there's
Speaker 5: other people that are in the same boat that I was,
Speaker 5: or have done the same thing, and they're trying to
Speaker 5: better their acting.
Speaker 2: The assault that led Tyler to Emerge, it wasn't the
Speaker 2: first time he was arrested for domestic violence against his girlfriend.
Speaker 2: He told me it happened once before three years earlier,
Speaker 2: and though he said he wasn't physically violent with her
Speaker 2: in those intervening years until the recent arrest, he's since
Speaker 2: come to see more of his behavior as abusive, the
Speaker 2: way he talked to her, monitored her activities, and controlled
Speaker 2: their finances. I asked him to describe his feelings now
Speaker 2: about how he treated her back then.
Speaker 5: I feel defeated and hate towards myself because not only
Speaker 5: did I do what I saw happened to my mother,
Speaker 5: I did what I saw happened to my mother, to
Speaker 5: the mother of my three kids, everything like that. I
Speaker 5: caused her pain in a way that I never wanted it.
Speaker 2: Tyler imagines that his girlfriend now X, feels betrayed. He
Speaker 2: said they haven't spoken since the night he strangled her.
Speaker 2: She has a protective order that bar's contact. Instead, he's
Speaker 2: working on himself at e Merge, and he's optimistic about
Speaker 2: his capacity for change.
Speaker 5: You always hear the expression once an abuser always abused her.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be that. That's not who I
Speaker 2: want to be.
Speaker 5: I don't want to be the person that everyone's afraid of,
Speaker 5: that someone slinches around or you can't talk to her
Speaker 5: where you're afraid of having someone taken away. I don't
Speaker 5: want to be that person.
Speaker 2: For Tyler's sake, for his future partner's sake, I hope
Speaker 2: he's sists that he's able to recognize and refrain from
Speaker 2: all forms of abusive behavior. Going through a merge certainly
Speaker 2: improves his chances. But hearing about Tyler's ongoing journey made
Speaker 2: me reflect on what I know about Devon. As far
Speaker 2: as I'm aware, Devon has never had an experience like emerge,
Speaker 2: an opportunity to interrogate his past and learn how to
Speaker 2: move forward in a healthy way. I think about Devon, who,
Speaker 2: as a teenager, was exhibiting lots of signs of being
Speaker 2: vulnerable and in need of help. What types of interventions
Speaker 2: could have made a difference. All those times IPD showed
Speaker 2: up and did nothing to help Libby, they also did
Speaker 2: nothing to help Devon. And all the people in Devon's life,
Speaker 2: and all the institutions that are supposed to prevent kids
Speaker 2: from slipping through the cracks? Did they miss all the
Speaker 2: signs that Devon was headed for disaster. One of the
Speaker 2: more stable adults in Devon's life back then was Cindy.
Speaker 5: Do you have any facy for Devan.
Speaker 1: I really do. It's very hard because I knew him
Speaker 1: as a kid. I knew the potential as a kid
Speaker 1: that he had. He was academically on top of things
Speaker 1: in school. He could have been a star football player.
Speaker 1: He really was funny.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: I'd seen how he had it with his family members,
Speaker 1: you know, and I would think sympathetically with that poor kid.
Speaker 1: You know, he just never had a good chance. He's
Speaker 1: got these drug addicted people in his life that are
Speaker 1: he's depending on. And I helped him get some help
Speaker 1: through the child services, like get a clothing voucher, but
Speaker 1: he didn't have any anybody did, like enrolling in school
Speaker 1: or anything. I wanted to help him, I really did.
Speaker 2: But that was several years ago, long before Libby would
Speaker 2: be found in a motel bathroom with Devon's belt wrapped
Speaker 2: around her neck. Those early feelings of empathy for Devon
Speaker 2: have been replaced by anger and grief, feelings that are
Speaker 2: even more complicated because Cindy is raising Libby and Devon's son,
Speaker 2: and even though Devon's parental rights were terminated after Libby's death,
Speaker 2: he's still Exavier's father. Cindy has to grapple with how
Speaker 2: to raise a child who in many ways has lost
Speaker 2: both parents.
Speaker 8: So we made a memory book, and that was one
Speaker 8: of my first things I did for him, so that
Speaker 8: he could see his mother's face and every picture is
Speaker 8: him and her. I just decided I was never going
Speaker 8: to tell him Bette his dead. He didn't need to
Speaker 8: know him. He's not even in parties life. But in therapy,
Speaker 8: Xavier wants to know this that is, you know. So
Speaker 8: that's real hard, you know. I didn't never want to
Speaker 8: do that. But so we added two pictures to his
Speaker 8: book and it's of him and his mom and dad,
Speaker 8: and I told him his name.
Speaker 9: You know, and.
Speaker 3: You just can't.
Speaker 1: Pretend he didn't ever have a dad. It was unrealistic.
Speaker 3: Give me.
Speaker 2: In the next and final episode of What Happened to
Speaker 2: Libby Caswell, and.
Speaker 1: So in my mind, I thought, why don't they know
Speaker 1: about this? Why is this a secret? It feels like
Speaker 1: a secret, you know.
Speaker 3: When I seen that story that I was floored. I
Speaker 3: really was.
Speaker 5: That's not what happened.
Speaker 6: If this was a powerful woman with status in the culture,
Speaker 6: this case would have been resolved by now and the
Speaker 6: would be in jail.
Speaker 2: What happened to Libby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted
Speaker 2: by me Melissa Jolson, with writing and story editing by
Speaker 2: Marisa Brown and Lauren Hanson. This episode was edited by
Speaker 2: Zubin Hensler. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch for iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Jason English At Katrina Norvel, with our
Speaker 2: supervising producer Carl Catel fact checking by Maya Shukri. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed by
Speaker 2: Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolfe. Original music by Aaron Kaufman
Speaker 2: with additional music by Jeremy Thall our episodes are mixed
Speaker 2: and mastered by Carl Catele. To find out more about
Speaker 2: my investigation or to send a tip, please email me
Speaker 2: at what Happened to Libby at gmail dot com. Thanks
Speaker 2: so much for listening