Speaker 1: Originals.
Speaker 2: This is an iHeart original. This story might be hard
Speaker 2: to hear. There's detailed talk of suicide and violence, but
Speaker 2: we think it's important not to gloss over the reality
Speaker 2: of what happened to Libby Caswell. Please take care while listening.
Speaker 2: I've read a few autopsy reports over the years, and
Speaker 2: it's always a peculiar, disconcerting experience. They're written in dispassionate
Speaker 2: clinical language and yet are oddly intimate. For example, in
Speaker 2: Libby's nine page report, we learned that her right lung
Speaker 2: weighed ten grams more than her left. Her teeth were
Speaker 2: in good repair and appeared healthy. Old acne scars were
Speaker 2: visible on her forehead. Libby's autopsy was performed by doctor
Speaker 2: Robert Pyitek of the Jackson County Medical Examiner's Office the
Speaker 2: day after her body was discovered at the sports stadium
Speaker 2: in She still had Devon's belt around her neck. Doctor
Speaker 2: Pytak noted that Libby's neck was completely encircled with a
Speaker 2: mark called a ligature furrow, apparently caused by the belt
Speaker 2: pressing into her skin. He also documented a number of
Speaker 2: other bruises and abrasions on Libby's throat, chest, back, and hands.
Speaker 2: The opinion section of the report is short and concise.
Speaker 2: Libby died of asphyxia a lack of oxygen, but doctor
Speaker 2: Pytak could not determine if Libby had hanged herself or
Speaker 2: was strangled by someone else, and so he left the
Speaker 2: manner of death undetermined. There's one more page of the autopsy,
Speaker 2: the results of Libby's post mortem toxicology report. Libby's blood
Speaker 2: was tested for certain substances like cocaine, which was negative,
Speaker 2: and alcohol, which was negligible. But one drug did show
Speaker 2: up at the time of her death. Libby had a
Speaker 2: high level of methamphetamine in her body.
Speaker 1: You know, she was found with a toxing amount of
Speaker 1: math in her system, and so I struggled with that
Speaker 1: when I got that report.
Speaker 2: Meth didn't literally kill Libby, but as I discovered reporting
Speaker 2: the story, it was a big part of her undoing
Speaker 2: as a fun through wine.
Speaker 1: Sod is She.
Speaker 2: From iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is what
Speaker 2: happened to Libby Caswell.
Speaker 3: When I walked past, I saw him roll her to
Speaker 3: the side and just punch your really hard in the thigh.
Speaker 3: I was like, kind of like what I did?
Speaker 2: He just hit her, but just the rest a little bit.
Speaker 4: Did something bad happened that thanks kind of out of control?
Speaker 5: No, sir, positive that promise.
Speaker 1: He would laugh and say that you're never going to
Speaker 1: catch me. I am too smart for them, And yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd just run off.
Speaker 6: You know, I couldn't be there could be a thousand.
Speaker 7: Maybe I should, but that didn't. What happened.
Speaker 2: A chapter four talk.
Speaker 1: I knew you know a lot about marijuana growing up,
Speaker 1: but I'd never heard about meth amphetamine because we didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Cindy Libby's mom isn't what I would call a partier.
Speaker 2: She rarely drinks, doesn't smoke cigarettes, and would rather watch
Speaker 2: TV than stay out late. She told me that recently
Speaker 2: she began using legal marijuana edibles to help with the
Speaker 2: dread and anxiety that surfaces when she tries to sleep
Speaker 2: at night. But although Cindy didn't have any personal experience
Speaker 2: with meth a highly addictive drug that can be made
Speaker 2: with household chemicals. The town she raised her family and
Speaker 2: did in the nineteen nineties, Around the same time Cindy
Speaker 2: started having kids, Missouri and Independence in particular became a
Speaker 2: hotbed of meth production. In nineteen ninety six, alone, authorities
Speaker 2: busted seventy five meth labs in Dependence, the largest number
Speaker 2: per capita in the nation. This prompted the Christian Science
Speaker 2: Monitor to dub it the quote meth capital of the
Speaker 2: United States. Rolling Stone later ran a feature story on
Speaker 2: Independence called Postcards from Tweakville that solidified its reputation as
Speaker 2: a meth haven. Fox News ran a national story that
Speaker 2: shined the spotlight on meth and the Independence Police Department.
Speaker 2: How bad is the myth problem an Independence, Missouri?
Speaker 7: And it's bad.
Speaker 8: We've got a major epidemic.
Speaker 2: For the next decade or so, meth continued to dominate
Speaker 2: local headlines and shape the workings of the police.
Speaker 9: Every night, Independence police make at least three arrests related
Speaker 9: to methews.
Speaker 2: They wont ipd solicited help from the community, and positioned
Speaker 2: itself as the best solution to the problem.
Speaker 5: To stop the.
Speaker 9: Cycle, Independence police are asking residents and business owners to
Speaker 9: call police about suspicious drug activity.
Speaker 2: And while the labs were mostly busted by the time
Speaker 2: Libby and Devon were in high school, the town was
Speaker 2: still sometimes disparagingly referred to as meth dependents, and the
Speaker 2: drug it was still pretty easy to find. I don't
Speaker 2: know for sure what year Libby first tried meth, but
Speaker 2: by her friend's accounts, it took place in high school
Speaker 2: sometime after Zave was born, and it was her boyfriend
Speaker 2: Devin who introduced her to the drug.
Speaker 10: He had started dabbling and drug like harder drugs than
Speaker 10: what any seventeen year old s could be doing.
Speaker 2: Holly, Libby's high school friend.
Speaker 8: It wasn't just the.
Speaker 10: Weed that he was, you know, smoking, and I think
Speaker 10: that's whenever he had actually started doing meth, and then
Speaker 10: he got Libby on it. She said that, you know,
Speaker 10: he kind of peer pressured her into trying it because
Speaker 10: they were in front of you know, a bunch of
Speaker 10: head spreads.
Speaker 6: I mean, I didn't think she knew about alcohol by
Speaker 6: the time she met him, and then she knew. She
Speaker 6: met him, she knew every drug, every pill, every drink everything.
Speaker 2: Nathan was childhood friends with Libby and later became friends
Speaker 2: with Devin too. He told me they would all sometimes
Speaker 2: get high on meth together.
Speaker 6: For Libby, I think it just made her more sociable.
Speaker 6: I think that we both always agreed that we liked
Speaker 6: the rush of it. Russia gave us. That's what I like,
Speaker 6: not that, And I like the fact that like whenever
Speaker 6: I did it, you know, I you know, could go
Speaker 6: in public, I could, I could basically accomplish anythings what
Speaker 6: it made me feel like.
Speaker 2: As Nathan saw it, Libby used meth to boost her
Speaker 2: confidence and maybe also to fit into Devon's social circle.
Speaker 2: This new part of her life. She kept it secret
Speaker 2: from her family and even many of her close friends.
Speaker 2: Here's Holly again.
Speaker 10: She didn't tell me about the first time.
Speaker 2: I mean, she just kind of goes to me for
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 10: I knew she was doing something, but she just wouldn't
Speaker 10: admit it to me at first. And she just finally
Speaker 10: broke down one day and she's like, I don't know
Speaker 10: what to do anymore.
Speaker 2: And here's where I believe Libby's life split in two,
Speaker 2: the bright social side that she presented to her friends
Speaker 2: and family and the darker, drug consumed side that she
Speaker 2: kept hidden. But with a drug like meth, it's not
Speaker 2: so easy to conceal its effects from those who really
Speaker 2: know you, and her family soon began to suspect something
Speaker 2: was going on. Here's Natalie, her younger sister.
Speaker 3: Her whole face would just completely change and she would
Speaker 3: be like just not herself. She was always like this
Speaker 3: really bubbly, happy, talkative person, and then when we would
Speaker 3: go see her, she was just like depressed and angry
Speaker 3: and irritable, and so it was like a completely different person.
Speaker 3: And that's how we started to recognize when she was
Speaker 3: on and off.
Speaker 2: Cindy started to notice something was wrong when Libby, already
Speaker 2: lean rapidly lost a lot of wait.
Speaker 1: I said, Libby, I'm so worried about you. You look
Speaker 1: like a skeleton. You know, are you eating? What's happening?
Speaker 2: And what was it like for you to see your
Speaker 2: daughter in that situation?
Speaker 10: It was bad.
Speaker 1: It was just devastating. I would leave here and cry.
Speaker 2: Libby and Devon would use together on and off again
Speaker 2: from around the age of seventeen until Libby's death at
Speaker 2: twenty one. Their drug use pushed their relationship even more
Speaker 2: into the shadows, away from others. Probing eyes and Libby's
Speaker 2: friends tell me, the more Devin used drugs, the more
Speaker 2: violent he became.
Speaker 8: She told me that when they would get in fights
Speaker 8: and it would be really bad. He would push her,
Speaker 8: hold her down and choke her, and.
Speaker 2: He would do it in front of their kids.
Speaker 6: When he was on drugs, he was really cool. That's
Speaker 6: how we quit. But then you know, he was doing
Speaker 6: drugs and he was one of those people that stayed
Speaker 6: up for like a week, and when you do that,
Speaker 6: you get crazy, you know. So he was always paranoid.
Speaker 6: He's always angry, violent. He really went off the rails
Speaker 6: that met. Like some people go off the rails, some
Speaker 6: people don't.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of alarmist rhetoric around meth users that
Speaker 2: they're unhinged, psychotic, and deeply dangerous. Take this Fox News
Speaker 2: clip from the nineties and where meth goes death violence.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about a drug.
Speaker 6: That induces violent behavior, that creates violence in people who
Speaker 6: never have been violent, wouldn't think of being violent.
Speaker 2: This is still a common stereotype about people who use
Speaker 2: meth and other drugs too, that they are more likely
Speaker 2: to be violent, and specifically violent towards the people closest
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 11: Not everyone who abuses substance is a domestic balance offender.
Speaker 11: I think the important thing to remembers it doesn't cause
Speaker 11: the abuse, but it definitely complicates abuse.
Speaker 2: Mariann Metheni is the CEO of the Hope House, a
Speaker 2: domestic violence agency that covers the Kansas City area, including Independence.
Speaker 2: She has seen firsthand the complicated, interconnected relationship between drugs
Speaker 2: and domestic violence, how drugs can hypercharge abuse that.
Speaker 11: Can take a situation into a more violent level much
Speaker 11: more quickly when someone is intoxicated.
Speaker 2: And how drug use can isolate victims even further.
Speaker 11: I think where it gets difficult and it's really hard
Speaker 11: for people to understand is that it is an unpallenge
Speaker 11: for the victim and to also be someone who uses substances.
Speaker 11: It can be a way to deal with what's going
Speaker 11: on and trying to escape for just a little while,
Speaker 11: like my world is falling apart, it's easier for me
Speaker 11: to use. The other piece is that it's often used
Speaker 11: as a control mechanism by the abuser as well. But
Speaker 11: it's not uncommon for an abuser to force someone to
Speaker 11: use at the same time that they're using, and then
Speaker 11: becoming addicted becomes just part of that whole relationship.
Speaker 2: Mathemei has observed how abusers often blame drugs and alcohol
Speaker 2: for their own bad behavior. I'm not abusive, I was
Speaker 2: just high. Victims may desperately want to believe this narrative too.
Speaker 11: Because it's easier in your mind to rationalize this atrocity
Speaker 11: of behaviors that's happening to you, because otherwise you have
Speaker 11: to look at this person and say, but you really
Speaker 11: don't care about me if you're going to abuse me,
Speaker 11: Because the reality is a person would have been doing
Speaker 11: those things to you even if they were sober, because
Speaker 11: we know that substances don't cause it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give the impression that drug used
Speaker 2: defined Libby's life. She quit using on a number of
Speaker 2: occasions and had long prosperous spells where she was clean
Speaker 2: and sober. These periods, they tended to coincide with times
Speaker 2: when she broke.
Speaker 12: Up with Devon, and that's whenever Libby was really her
Speaker 12: best is when Devin wasn't around. She could see her
Speaker 12: full potential, but.
Speaker 2: Inevitably he would re enter the picture. Libby's friends Autumna
Speaker 2: Mariah explained to me what that cycle looks like.
Speaker 12: Libby was almost like a dog on a leash, like
Speaker 12: she could only get so far from Devon before here
Speaker 12: comes Devon or here comes Devin's call.
Speaker 8: He would come back when he was sober.
Speaker 12: He would convince everybody. He's gonna do the right thing,
Speaker 12: you know, and treat her right, and treat Zab right.
Speaker 8: He would love bomb her and give her everything, tell
Speaker 8: her whatever she wanted, and all she wanted was to
Speaker 8: be a family with the father of her child, and
Speaker 8: he would promise her that.
Speaker 12: That's pretty much how Libby always got looped back into
Speaker 12: the cycle, as how he claimed he'd be a good
Speaker 12: dad this time around. You know, Zab needs a dad.
Speaker 12: Blah blah blah blah blah, the whole good dad game.
Speaker 8: Sometimes they would be good for months. He wouldn't hurt her,
Speaker 8: they wouldn't use drugs, they would be clean and happy
Speaker 8: and healthy. And then the newness and him trying starts.
Speaker 13: To wear off, and he would get mean again, and
Speaker 13: then he would go out and use drugs, and then
Speaker 13: she would end up using as well, because I mean,
Speaker 13: her partner's out there doing everything and being abusive to her.
Speaker 2: And how many times you estimate that this happened while
Speaker 2: you knew her.
Speaker 8: In the couple of years, probably like three or four.
Speaker 6: I know she always felt like when.
Speaker 8: She had nothing less like that's what she had was
Speaker 8: him and drugs, and she would just keep keep going
Speaker 8: back until she got her feet under her again, and
Speaker 8: she'd kick him and kick the drugs and be happy
Speaker 8: and healthy and sober by herself.
Speaker 14: Here, Menny, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you,
Speaker 14: Happy birthday year.
Speaker 12: Save.
Speaker 15: Half birthday to you.
Speaker 14: Flow your candles, load a candle fire.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you want a piece of the Batman cake.
Speaker 14: Cake?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 14: Okay, okay, I'm gonna give you some hand on.
Speaker 2: It's the beginning of May twenty seventeen. Zave is turning four.
Speaker 2: Libby bake's in a chocolate cake decorated with a blue
Speaker 2: and gold Batman symbol. It looks professional Cindy would be proud.
Speaker 2: In the video, Libby appears happy and carefree, a mom
Speaker 2: trying to make her son's birthday special, but really she's
Speaker 2: putting on a brave face. Just a few days earlier,
Speaker 2: she and Devin broke up once again, and this time
Speaker 2: when he left, he took the car she used to
Speaker 2: get to work and drained their joint bank account, leaving
Speaker 2: her stranded and broke right before reent was due. Libby
Speaker 2: was sad and understandably furious, but stealing with something Devin
Speaker 2: was known to do when he was using he stole
Speaker 2: from strangers, friends, and now the woman he claimed to love.
Speaker 2: A few weeks later, Devin's reckless behavior caught up to him.
Speaker 2: He was arrested and charged with burglarizing someone's apartment. He
Speaker 2: ended up spending most of the summer behind bars. It
Speaker 2: was a long time to be away from Libby. By
Speaker 2: my estimate, this was the longest separation that had in years,
Speaker 2: and for Libby this was a complicated period. She was
Speaker 2: grieving the law loss of the life. She was trying
Speaker 2: to build a family with Devon and Zave, but Devn's
Speaker 2: incarceration allowed her enough space, both mental and physical, to
Speaker 2: start reimagining her future.
Speaker 16: She was always out going, you know, and happy that
Speaker 16: she also was a little stressed because she was trying
Speaker 16: to do everything on her own.
Speaker 2: With Devon out of the picture, Libby began to re
Speaker 2: establish relationships with people should cut off, especially her mom Cindy.
Speaker 16: We would make dinners and we had one of those
Speaker 16: speakers that hipped up to the bluetooth and we'd take
Speaker 16: her and spicking out songs.
Speaker 2: You know, and playing music. That summer, Libby kept herself
Speaker 2: busy between visits with family, looking after Zaev, and a
Speaker 2: new job at the mall food court, where she got
Speaker 2: to work beside her friend Mariah.
Speaker 7: Oh was there recording yep.
Speaker 2: This is a clip of them walking from the park
Speaker 2: working a lot to the mall entrance, already dressed in
Speaker 2: their uniforms for the day. The person making that whoo
Speaker 2: sound that's Libby in this video. She's laughing, mugging for
Speaker 2: the camera, a pretty normal twenty one year old on
Speaker 2: her way to a summer job. She worked right next
Speaker 2: door to me.
Speaker 17: We would take our breaks in the hallway together.
Speaker 2: We would talk all day during work.
Speaker 17: I mean, our managers hated that we worked right next
Speaker 17: to each other. We were constantly talking, constantly causing chaos together.
Speaker 17: We would hang out outside of work almost every day,
Speaker 17: if not every weekend.
Speaker 2: Mariah's strongest memory of Libby this summer. The last summer
Speaker 2: of Libby's life, was the day she showed up at
Speaker 2: the mall to return the engagement ring Devin had given
Speaker 2: her that past Christmas.
Speaker 17: I'll never forget. She called me in a super good mood,
Speaker 17: saying that she's on the way up to the mall,
Speaker 17: but it was her day off and she wanted me
Speaker 17: to come out and walk inside with her. She was
Speaker 17: just being She came up to the mall to a
Speaker 17: exchange and get her money back for the ring that
Speaker 17: Devin had bought her, and she said she.
Speaker 2: Was going to be moving on. She told me like
Speaker 2: she was done, done going back and forth.
Speaker 17: She's finally going to do what she needed to do
Speaker 17: for her and she was finally turning a page.
Speaker 2: Many people do successfully get out of abusive relationships. I've
Speaker 2: met a lot of them, heard their stories. Rarely does
Speaker 2: it happen on the first try, or even the second
Speaker 2: or the third. In my opinion, the cycle that Libby
Speaker 2: went through clean and single, using and back with Devon,
Speaker 2: that was her process of trying to leave. Because leaving
Speaker 2: is a process. It takes time and resources and support
Speaker 2: and a hell of a lot of courage. And that
Speaker 2: summer of twenty seventeen seemed like a turning point for Libby.
Speaker 2: She was building a new foundation for her life. But
Speaker 2: it wouldn't it turned out be enough.
Speaker 17: As soon as Devin came back into the picture. She
Speaker 17: lost her car, her apartment, her job, everything, you know.
Speaker 17: The only thing she was still hanging on to was
Speaker 17: her sobriety.
Speaker 2: Devin is released from jail in mid July. Almost immediately,
Speaker 2: he tries to get back into Libby's life, calling and
Speaker 2: coming by her apartment. Libby resists, stays vigilant. She never
Speaker 2: knew when Devin was watching.
Speaker 17: I can't tell you a single time at night that
Speaker 17: she'd ever have her blinds up, and she always was
Speaker 17: looking over her shoulder always.
Speaker 2: When Devin fails to get Libby's attention, he posts on
Speaker 2: Facebook about how she was stopping him from being the
Speaker 2: good dad he yearned to be. Quote, Daddy has a
Speaker 2: big boy and it's killing him not to be able
Speaker 2: to see him. Libby, please just be grown about all this. Please,
Speaker 2: It's not his fault that we can't seem to stay
Speaker 2: in cahoots with one another. To all the mothers out there,
Speaker 2: let your child be in the father's life. His next
Speaker 2: post turns angry. I'm about to snap like a slim gem.
Speaker 2: Can't believe the choices that she's making. WTF she won't
Speaker 2: answer my calls. I don't know how Libby responded to
Speaker 2: Devin's aggressive please, because she didn't share any of this
Speaker 2: with her family. Here's Cindy.
Speaker 16: She didn't tell me a lot of stuff because she
Speaker 16: knew I would be mad if she was talking to
Speaker 16: I think she was ashamed of it, you know, like
Speaker 16: after everything he had done to her.
Speaker 2: The close bonds that Cindy and Libby rebuilt that summer
Speaker 2: disappears pretty quickly.
Speaker 16: I started not being able to really talk to her,
Speaker 16: Like I noticed less contact with me, only like about Xavier.
Speaker 16: And when we had to have contact, I was calling
Speaker 16: her and texting her where are you?
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: I need to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Cindy had been here before. She knew what it meant
Speaker 2: when Libby went silent. It meant Devon was back in
Speaker 2: Libby's life, and probably meth was too. Cindy knew Libby
Speaker 2: was back with Devon and using, and she felt powerless,
Speaker 2: unable to help this situation. It might sound familiar if
Speaker 2: you have a family member who struggles with substance abuse.
Speaker 2: It can be impossible to know the right thing to do,
Speaker 2: how to support your loved one without feeling like you're
Speaker 2: enabling their drug use or punishing them when they're already
Speaker 2: so low and practically there's very few options and not
Speaker 2: a lot of resources for families going through this. Cindy's
Speaker 2: overriding concern is her daughter's safety and the safety of
Speaker 2: her grandson, Xavier. She's worried that he might be being
Speaker 2: left unsupervised, and so she takes a quote tough love approach.
Speaker 2: On September seventh, twenty seventeen, she calls Missouri's child welfare
Speaker 2: hotline to report that she believes Xavier is living in
Speaker 2: a home where drugs are being used.
Speaker 5: I felt horrible at first.
Speaker 16: I was just really down about that. But I was
Speaker 16: also conflicted because I thought, this is exactly what needs
Speaker 16: to happen. She needs to have this accountability and make
Speaker 16: it serious, like you're gonna lose your child over this guy.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: The repercussions are swift and severe. Almost immediately, Xavier is
Speaker 2: placed into temporary custody with Cindy. Libya is assigned a
Speaker 2: case manager, and the state lays out of plan. If
Speaker 2: she wants to regain custody of her son, she has
Speaker 2: to prove she's a respectible mother, and a big part
Speaker 2: of that is getting clean. She's required to do random
Speaker 2: drug tests, to participate in meetings with a social worker,
Speaker 2: and to go to court regularly. She has also allotted
Speaker 2: a weekly visit with Zev overseen by Colleen Huff, a
Speaker 2: state assigned parent Aid.
Speaker 15: We work with at risk families whose children have been
Speaker 15: removed and placed in alternative care. We're kind of the
Speaker 15: eyes and the ears for the caseworkers because they never
Speaker 15: see the children and their parents interact together.
Speaker 2: Calling observed Libby as she interacted with Zev, usually at
Speaker 2: Cindy's house.
Speaker 10: She hated it.
Speaker 16: At first, she hated Colleen. She's like, when I got
Speaker 16: to meet that lady, she gets on my nerves. And
Speaker 16: then she ended up loving calling yeah, because she you know,
Speaker 16: you don't want to be made to do things that
Speaker 16: you don't want to do, but she saw the good
Speaker 16: in it.
Speaker 2: Eventually, he took the state requirements seriously, abiding by the
Speaker 2: many rules and random drug tests intended to keep her accountable,
Speaker 2: and as far as both Cindy and Colleen saw, Libby
Speaker 2: was committed to getting her son back as soon as
Speaker 2: she could.
Speaker 15: Libby loved her son. You could tell that by their interaction.
Speaker 15: You know, just close connected, lots of hugs, kisses, and
Speaker 15: you know, just to fun times, laughing and you know,
Speaker 15: just doing whatever he wanted to do. So she was
Speaker 15: super sweet and seemed vulnerable, you know, like she needed
Speaker 15: strong support. She was just somebody that I really wanted
Speaker 15: to help.
Speaker 2: The truth is that Libby did need help. I want
Speaker 2: to pause here for a second to consider the formidable
Speaker 2: challenges that she was facing at this moment. Libby was
Speaker 2: trying to quit methamphetamine, a drug that is notoriously difficult
Speaker 2: to kick. She was navigating a long term abusive relationship that,
Speaker 2: by her account, had grown more dangerous, and then she
Speaker 2: lost custody of her son, the person who brought her
Speaker 2: the most joy. This was undoubtedly a low point in
Speaker 2: Libby's life. Even with help, she would have had a
Speaker 2: long road ahead of her.
Speaker 6: So she talked about telling herself to day, Yes, sir.
Speaker 2: Is it possible that Libby was suicidal, as Devin claimed
Speaker 2: the night her body was found?
Speaker 15: Why just because of our situations with real boss, cousin
Speaker 15: and our friend.
Speaker 2: There are a number of factors in Libby's life that
Speaker 2: studies have linked with increased suicidal behavior, like drug abuse,
Speaker 2: which impacts brain chemistry and can result in the loss
Speaker 2: of self control, and experiencing domestic violence, which can be traumatic.
Speaker 2: One report by the CDC found that in twenty five
Speaker 2: percent of female suicides, intimate partner problems are a contributing factor.
Speaker 2: And that rate is even higher among teens. Libby's young
Speaker 2: age might also qualify as a risk factor, says Elizabeth McCulloch,
Speaker 2: a youth mental health expert and suicide prevention advocate in Missouri.
Speaker 5: One of the things that we see frequently in young people,
Speaker 5: whether we're talking about trauma or substance misuse or behavior disorders,
Speaker 5: is they only know what they know today. They don't
Speaker 5: have the ability to do a lot of forward thinking.
Speaker 4: They also have not had the opportunities to experience a
Speaker 4: positive failure or so learning from their mistakes or learning
Speaker 4: from their failures, or having a better understanding that things
Speaker 4: can improve, things are going to get better.
Speaker 2: This is just a moment. It's not the rest of
Speaker 2: my life. McCulloch says, when it comes to suicideal factors,
Speaker 2: it's never any one thing.
Speaker 5: It's a layering on a loss of identity, a feeling
Speaker 5: of disconnection, of feeling that you may be burdened on
Speaker 5: other people, that your behaviors or your activities are pulling
Speaker 5: other people down. You're responsible for that, losing a sense
Speaker 5: of purpose in life. There's no purpose for me to
Speaker 5: keep continuing forward. Things are never going to change. I'm stuck.
Speaker 2: And then also that thought of is just hopeless.
Speaker 5: It's hopeless, there's no hope. So that really critical lethal
Speaker 5: intersection is between hopelessness, burdensomeness, and a sense of having
Speaker 5: no purpose.
Speaker 2: When I described all that Livy was facing at this
Speaker 2: point in her life, McCulloch recognized another risk factor.
Speaker 5: Anytime there's a loss, and what you just described were
Speaker 5: multiple losses. Right she awes her child, she's feeling like
Speaker 5: she's lost herself. She's not able to control her substance use,
Speaker 5: so she gets lost in that loss is a common
Speaker 5: thread that we see, whether it's perceived or real. When
Speaker 5: you peel away the substance use, you peel away the
Speaker 5: abusive relationship, and you've really got some raw emotions that
Speaker 5: are sitting there that are difficult to explain and talk
Speaker 5: through if you don't feel that you can trust the
Speaker 5: people around you to talk about that.
Speaker 2: We know that Libby tried to hide a lot of
Speaker 2: things about her life that she was capable of putting
Speaker 2: on a happy face.
Speaker 5: On the outside. People could have seen her life and said,
Speaker 5: she's maybe a little messed up, but she's got some
Speaker 5: good things going on, and she's looking towards the future.
Speaker 5: She's got some pleas and she's trying to pull it
Speaker 5: together to get her son back without really recognizing the
Speaker 5: energy and the distress that she's going through to try
Speaker 5: to keep herself moving forward.
Speaker 2: Of course, McCulloch never worked directly with Libby, and these
Speaker 2: risk factors she's pointing out, they don't automatically mean Libby
Speaker 2: with suicidal. They just mean she was at risk. And
Speaker 2: the thing is, Libby did have experts in her life
Speaker 2: around the time of her death, experts who were observing
Speaker 2: her mental health and who didn't notice any overt signs
Speaker 2: of suicidal behavior. One of them was her parent, aid Colleen,
Speaker 2: do you believe that she was suicidal had she ever
Speaker 2: made any suicide?
Speaker 8: I just I.
Speaker 15: Can't perceive her doing that, just because she loved her
Speaker 15: son so much that I just don't believe she would
Speaker 15: be capable of doing that knowing that she would never
Speaker 15: get to see her son again and then her son
Speaker 15: would grow up without a mom.
Speaker 2: So I don't believe so. If anything, Colleen saw Libby's
Speaker 2: fight to get her son back as a catalyst that
Speaker 2: propelled her into action. Despite the challenges of state intervention,
Speaker 2: Libby was eager to do everything she could to prove
Speaker 2: herself a capable parent.
Speaker 15: We had several I was working with her to get
Speaker 15: these services set up for her son, also ged classes
Speaker 15: and completion of those classes, and then we had started
Speaker 15: applying for public housing.
Speaker 2: Colin wasn't the only professional observing and monitoring Libby during
Speaker 2: this time. I also talked to a social worker involved
Speaker 2: in Libby's case who agreed to be interviewed anonymously. I
Speaker 2: asked her directly if she saw any signs of suicidal
Speaker 2: behavior in Libby. She said no. I've spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time asking Libby's friends and family about how she
Speaker 2: seemed in the few months before her death. And to
Speaker 2: be very clear, there's no one way a person acts
Speaker 2: when they're suicidal. They might make plans for the future,
Speaker 2: or not appear in good spirits, or not confide in
Speaker 2: others or not, And so I don't want to put
Speaker 2: too much stock in these impressions. But by and large
Speaker 2: they echoed the points made by Colleen, that Libby was
Speaker 2: being challenged and pushed, but that she was embracing it,
Speaker 2: determined to come out stronger with her son.
Speaker 1: She started jumping through all the hoops. She was like,
Speaker 1: I am I know what I need to do now,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 5: She acts like she was just ready to move on.
Speaker 13: Like the last messages that I have with her, that
Speaker 13: she had sent me with her asking if she could
Speaker 13: possibly come and move in with me and her come
Speaker 13: work with me where I was working acause I was
Speaker 13: making a lot of money.
Speaker 7: All she wanted to do was clean up and get
Speaker 7: away from him, stay clean, keep her rights with her son.
Speaker 7: I watched her progress and try to get better there
Speaker 7: at the end for really, and I thought she was
Speaker 7: on a good road to it personally.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of What Happened to Libby Caswell,
Speaker 2: we zero in on the last week of Libby's life.
Speaker 3: I was like, why don't you just come home? We
Speaker 3: could tell him you're not here. She just kept saying, like, no,
Speaker 3: I can't do that. You don't understand what would happen
Speaker 3: if I stay here? He would know I'm here and
Speaker 3: it's not safe for you, and it's not.
Speaker 13: Safe for Zave.
Speaker 6: Let me dem Nathan, I don't. I don't think I
Speaker 6: feel safe with Devin anymore.
Speaker 3: Like I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Some seamed off right now. What Happened To Libby Caswell
Speaker 2: is written, reported, and hosted by me Melissa Jelson, with
Speaker 2: writing and story editing by Marisa Brown and Lauren Hanson.
Speaker 2: Episodes are edited by Jeremy Thal and Carl Catle. Our
Speaker 2: executive producer is Ryan Murdoch. For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers
Speaker 2: are Jason English and Katrina Norvell. Our supervising producer Carl Catele.
Speaker 2: Fact checking by Maya Shukree. Archival material courtesy of KSHB
Speaker 2: forty one News. Our theme song is written by Aaron
Speaker 2: Kaufman and performed by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Woolf. Original
Speaker 2: music by Aaron Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal.
Speaker 2: Our episodes are mixed and mastered by Carl Catele. To
Speaker 2: find out more about my investigation or to send a tip,
Speaker 2: please email me at what Happened to libbyat gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for listening