Speaker 1: Originals.
Speaker 2: This is an iHeart original. This story can 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 3: People don't understand why survivors just don't leave. When you're
Speaker 3: in love with an abuser, your logic changes to a
Speaker 3: point where abuse is all that you know, it's all
Speaker 3: that you think about, it's all that you justify. I
Speaker 3: would have done anything to make my abuser happy. His
Speaker 3: happiness was the most important thing to me on the planet.
Speaker 4: He was like the most kind, generous, charming young man
Speaker 4: everyone in loved time, life, family, my friends, everyone.
Speaker 5: I was one of those, like fiercely independent women, like
Speaker 5: no man's ever going to put his hands on me,
Speaker 5: and then that situation came to me directly.
Speaker 2: Libby will never be able to share her experience of
Speaker 2: domestic violence with us, but everything I've learned about what
Speaker 2: she went through, it's painfully familiar to me. And that's
Speaker 2: because over the years, I've talked to dozens of other
Speaker 2: women victims whose stories are remarkably similar to Libby's.
Speaker 4: He was controlling, but at that time I was really young,
Speaker 4: and I kind of romanticize the control and the extreme jealousy.
Speaker 5: It was very sporadic at the beginning. There was other
Speaker 5: behaviors that probably should have been a red flag. I thought, like,
Speaker 5: he's got a temper, he can be really mean, but
Speaker 5: I didn't see it as abuse. At that time.
Speaker 3: He was always angry. He would punch walls or punch trees,
Speaker 3: or slam doors and punch the bed to create an
Speaker 3: environment of physical intimidation threat. The first time I hit
Speaker 3: me was a punch whilst air.
Speaker 6: It was punching my gut and I remember I thought
Speaker 6: in my head, I'm dying.
Speaker 2: I remember I fell to my knees. It took my
Speaker 2: wile to grass my air.
Speaker 4: But it was the shock because it's those seconds feel horrible.
Speaker 4: The first time that I experienced my ex husband, the
Speaker 4: father and my kids, put his sons around my neck.
Speaker 4: I was about seventeen years old when he was eighteen.
Speaker 5: The first time I experienced strangeration was on my thirtieth birthday.
Speaker 4: And he looked at me directly and put his hands
Speaker 4: around my neck. And he is a pretty tall guy,
Speaker 4: around six sixty one and his big hands, so it
Speaker 4: only took him one hand to just go around.
Speaker 5: My whole neck, and he grabbed me by my throat
Speaker 5: and slammed me against the garage and then he slammed
Speaker 5: me on the ground and cracked my head open.
Speaker 4: I just was in shock, and I was scared he.
Speaker 2: Would do it to the point before killing me. It
Speaker 2: was more of proving a point. I'm the boss.
Speaker 5: You listen to me, you obeyed to me, and then
Speaker 5: release you.
Speaker 4: He was, I'm so sorry about what happened. I didn't
Speaker 4: mean to hurt you. I was just really jealous. And
Speaker 4: that's how the cycle stayed, right, It's just forgive and
Speaker 4: it's not going to happen again. I always wanted to
Speaker 4: believe that that was not gonna happen again.
Speaker 3: I felt so incredibly alone.
Speaker 4: I never told anyone what had happened.
Speaker 1: And it was shameful too.
Speaker 4: Right, just like, oh my gosh, I have this wonderful, charming,
Speaker 4: handsome boyfriend. Why is people going to say?
Speaker 5: And I got to the point that he was strangling
Speaker 5: me and I was welcoming it. I was like, please
Speaker 5: just and kill me, you know, I just fucking kill me.
Speaker 5: I And that really, really was what kind of kicked
Speaker 5: my husband a gear that scared me that I was
Speaker 5: welcoming it. And I had gotten so desperate and wanted
Speaker 5: out of that situation so badly that I just wanted
Speaker 5: him to kill me.
Speaker 4: I always had the hope that he was going to change, initially,
Speaker 4: and then that hope turning to fear of laving him.
Speaker 3: And at that point it probably was my third or
Speaker 3: fourth time trying to leave the relationship.
Speaker 5: The only reason I left really was because I wouldn't
Speaker 5: be here today if I had said, he would have
Speaker 5: killed me. I'm sure of it.
Speaker 2: From iHeart Podcasts, I'm Melissa Jeldson, and this is what
Speaker 2: happened to Libby Caswell.
Speaker 7: That we happened. Tell me again, I don't know what.
Speaker 2: I mean with nobody on seen to tell him what happened.
Speaker 8: And it was crying, and I said, and I was like, man,
Speaker 8: what happened.
Speaker 5: If they were just going back and got the video,
Speaker 5: one or two things would happened.
Speaker 6: Something that happened, Things got out of control.
Speaker 1: It's a fus you wouldn't know. So what.
Speaker 7: What had happened is we were at the scene.
Speaker 9: But that actually happened to her, and I have pictures
Speaker 9: of it. She didn't ever tell me of the extent
Speaker 9: of all the things that happened.
Speaker 7: I don't honestly know what happened.
Speaker 6: Nobody wants to believed that should happened.
Speaker 10: I shouldn't, fuck though, but it is what it is.
Speaker 1: That is what happened.
Speaker 2: And how many times do you estimate that this happened
Speaker 2: while you knew her?
Speaker 4: I am so sorry for what happened.
Speaker 7: When I've seen that story, when I was bored, I
Speaker 7: really was. That's not what happened. There could be a thousand.
Speaker 7: Maybe I should should that didn't what happened?
Speaker 9: R How do you even tell a child this story
Speaker 9: when they ask what happened to my mother?
Speaker 2: Chapter eight, Epiphany.
Speaker 11: There's somewhere between three to five million abused women every year.
Speaker 2: This is Jackie Campbell, a pioneering researcher in the field
Speaker 2: of domestic violence.
Speaker 11: Even though we know prior domestic violence is the biggest
Speaker 11: risk factor for women being murdered by their partner, there's
Speaker 11: only about twelve hundred women twelve hundred to fifteen hundred
Speaker 11: that get murdered every year. That's a tiny, tiny fraction
Speaker 11: of all of the abused women and That's why it's
Speaker 11: important to figure out what are the characteristics of that
Speaker 11: abuse of relationship that you say, Ah, that's dangerous. The
Speaker 11: danger assessment is meant for those women. Thirty eight years ago,
Speaker 11: Campbell created the Danger Assessment Tool. It's essentially a series
Speaker 11: of questions to help victims of abuse better understand the
Speaker 11: danger their partner poses to them. It's based on research
Speaker 11: into known risk factors for lethal domestic violence. Has the
Speaker 11: physical violence increased in severity or frequency? Has he ever
Speaker 11: forced you to have sex when you did not wish
Speaker 11: to do so? Does he ever try to choke, strangle,
Speaker 11: or cut off your breathing? Does he use illegal drugs?
Speaker 11: Does he control most.
Speaker 2: Campbell's goal was that someone a social worker or a
Speaker 2: healthcare provider, or a police officer responding to a domestic
Speaker 2: violence call could use the questions to a sess how
Speaker 2: much danger a victim was in and intervene before it
Speaker 2: was too late. The tool is now used by law
Speaker 2: enforcement in dozens of states as a proactive approach to
Speaker 2: reducing domestic violence homicides. As far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: Libby was never given a danger assessment. No professional ever
Speaker 2: asked Libby questions about the increasing level of abuse she
Speaker 2: was dealing with, about the types of abuse she endured
Speaker 2: or the threats that went along with it. But what
Speaker 2: seems clear to me is that Libby's relationship with Devon
Speaker 2: was extremely dangerous. Instead of being labeled uncooperative or a nuisance.
Speaker 2: What if Libby had been given this assessment? Would it
Speaker 2: have changed how IPD interacted with her and her family?
Speaker 2: Would it have changed her own behavior knowing just how
Speaker 2: much danger she was in. Cindy had never heard of
Speaker 2: the danger assessment, but after she began working with Alliance
Speaker 2: for Hope, she was introduced to Jackie Campbell, and one
Speaker 2: day she sat down with her to do the assessment
Speaker 2: on Libby's behalf.
Speaker 9: She said she was going to ask me a series
Speaker 9: of questions, answered them to the best of my knowledge,
Speaker 9: and so that's what I did.
Speaker 2: Before Campbell gave Cindy the results, she explained how the
Speaker 2: assessment is scored.
Speaker 11: Zero to eight is called variable danger. That's the lowest level,
Speaker 11: but we never say there's no danger and domestic violence.
Speaker 11: Any domestic vious situation could escalate to a homicide. The
Speaker 11: second level is eight to thirteen, which is called increased danger.
Speaker 11: Fourteen to seventeen is severe danger and then eighteen or
Speaker 11: more is extreme danger. So she got a thirty six.
Speaker 11: This is I think the highest score I've ever gotten
Speaker 11: on danger assessment. The absolute highest score you can get
Speaker 11: on it is thirty nine. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 11: seen that.
Speaker 9: That almost made me faint.
Speaker 2: I'm serious.
Speaker 9: It also made me think if any person involved in
Speaker 9: her case in the court system, if any one of
Speaker 9: them would have offered up an assessment, could that have
Speaker 9: helped her? Would she be alive today? And so in
Speaker 9: my mind I thought, why don't they know about this?
Speaker 9: Why haven't I heard about this? Why is this a secret?
Speaker 9: It feels like a secret.
Speaker 2: This was a bit of an AHA moment for Cindy.
Speaker 2: I understood from our many conversations that beyond wanting to
Speaker 2: discover the truth of what happened to Libby in the
Speaker 2: motel room that day, Cindy was looking for more answers,
Speaker 2: deeper answers about why things went so wrong for Libby
Speaker 2: and where they could have gone differently years for her death.
Speaker 2: Jackie Campbell's danger assessment confirmed what Cindy felt in her
Speaker 2: gut that Libby had been failed by a system that
Speaker 2: was supposed to support her. It also got Cindy thinking
Speaker 2: about better ways to help victims of domestic violence like Libby,
Speaker 2: because around this time, Cindy was also becoming something of
Speaker 2: an advocate. She told me she wanted IPD to begin
Speaker 2: using the danger assessment with domestic violence victims, and also
Speaker 2: for the city to rescind the nuisance law that had
Speaker 2: been used to penalize her family all those years earlier.
Speaker 9: Since I've learned so many things about domestic violence, I
Speaker 9: am ready to try to get the right ears to listen.
Speaker 9: Hopefully our state and city officials will start to recognize
Speaker 9: how important that is.
Speaker 2: In October twenty twenty two, Cindy and I both traveled
Speaker 2: to Colorado to attend a conference called Getting Away with Murder.
Speaker 2: It was an opportunity for law enforcement from around the
Speaker 2: country to learn how to spot staged crime scenes and
Speaker 2: strategies to prosecute them. Cindy had been invited by Casey Gwynn,
Speaker 2: an Alliance for Hope, to speak about Libby's case.
Speaker 5: Cindy orw sure w love.
Speaker 9: I feel less nervous by my chair.
Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Mindia as well.
Speaker 12: My daughter was Libby Wiswell, and she was a beautiful, young, twenty.
Speaker 1: One year old old.
Speaker 2: In Colorado. I got to watch firsthand as Cindy tested
Speaker 2: out her new role as an advocate, telling the large
Speaker 2: crowd details of the most difficult experience of her life,
Speaker 2: all in the hopes that it would someday be useful.
Speaker 1: That's my goal.
Speaker 12: I would love for the police department to really examine
Speaker 12: a situation and ask questions to the family. We were
Speaker 12: never asked anything, no questions. We tried to offer information,
Speaker 12: and really they just had their minds made up.
Speaker 1: So anyway, thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: During one of the sessions, photos from the crime scene
Speaker 2: were projected on a massive screen. I was sitting next
Speaker 2: to Cindy at a long table, and I watched as
Speaker 2: she kept her eyes averted trained on the floor to
Speaker 2: avoid seeing her daughter's dead body. I asked her about
Speaker 2: it later during a break.
Speaker 9: It's just a lot of different things and have had
Speaker 9: to sit back and kind of process it all day.
Speaker 9: I just felt this blue feeling and I didn't know
Speaker 9: why I thought it. You know, I talked to myself,
Speaker 9: You're okay, take some deep bress, smell a flower, blow
Speaker 9: out the candle. You know, I'd learned that recently.
Speaker 2: In between the panel discussions and events, Cindy and I
Speaker 2: tried to buffer the intensity of the conference with the
Speaker 2: serenity of our surroundings. Situated as we were at the
Speaker 2: base of Rocky Mountain National Park. When the talks became
Speaker 2: too much, we would take quiet walks through the snow.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was just having a moment in nature away
Speaker 2: from Cindy's life and independence, or maybe it was her
Speaker 2: growing understanding about her daughter's experience with domestic violence. But
Speaker 2: something in Cindy's past came to the surface. One evening
Speaker 2: she mentioned to me that many years ago, long before
Speaker 2: Libby was born, her older sister Dietta, was killed by
Speaker 2: her ex husband. I was pretty taken aback to hear this.
Speaker 2: In reporting this story, I've interviewed Cindy well over a
Speaker 2: dozen times. I've asked her some incredibly personal questions, and
Speaker 2: she's always answered them, no matter how difficult. But not
Speaker 2: once had Dietta's name come up. I didn't press Cindy
Speaker 2: for too many details. At the time, it had been
Speaker 2: an emotional weekend and I could tell it was hard
Speaker 2: for her to talk about her sister. But back up
Speaker 2: my computer, I did some googling and found a newspaper
Speaker 2: story from nineteen eighty seven with the headline six die
Speaker 2: in murder suicide. Here's what happened. One week after Dietta Knight,
Speaker 2: who was just twenty seven, divorced her husband Virgil, he
Speaker 2: came to her home and shot and killed her and
Speaker 2: their two young sons. He also killed a friend Dietta
Speaker 2: had been hanging out with earlier in the evening and
Speaker 2: the friend's boyfriend. He then took his own life. At
Speaker 2: the date on the article, I realized it happened almost
Speaker 2: exactly thirty years to the day before Libby's death. And
Speaker 2: there was more. As our time in Colorado went on,
Speaker 2: Cindy continued to open up to me about the cycle
Speaker 2: of domestic violence, not just within her family, but within
Speaker 2: her own marriage too.
Speaker 9: You know, Virgil did it to my sister, and then
Speaker 9: Devin did it too Ruby, and of course my husband
Speaker 9: verbally abused me.
Speaker 2: Cindy told me that her husband, Robert, was never physically abusive,
Speaker 2: but had a habit of raising his voice, calling her names,
Speaker 2: making her feel bad about herself. Robert declined to be
Speaker 2: interviewed for this podcast. Cindy also told me that like
Speaker 2: Libby liked so many victims. She tried multiple times to
Speaker 2: leave her husband, but faced resistance.
Speaker 9: He took my car keys when I said I was
Speaker 9: going to leave, told me to sit on the bed
Speaker 9: and not to move, and he'd go to work the
Speaker 9: next day and I'd throw things in bags and we'd
Speaker 9: go to Oklahoma or to my friend. You know. I
Speaker 9: left him at least twice before the third and the
Speaker 9: final were I divorced him. And it was always that
Speaker 9: same thing that they talk about, of how the man
Speaker 9: will beg and plead and try to point out all
Speaker 9: the places where he's a good guy. He works every day,
Speaker 9: he works his butt off for us, except he didn't
Speaker 9: use nice language, and so I'd be like, well, and
Speaker 9: he's not hitting me, you know, but really it's a
Speaker 9: or severe punch in the gut some of the words
Speaker 9: that are used when someone's verbally abusing you. I kept
Speaker 9: trying to help him, And this is why I think
Speaker 9: Liaby did the same thing with Devin, because she witnessed
Speaker 9: me trying to love her dad through some stuff. And
Speaker 9: so I'm in therapy about that, you know, because I
Speaker 9: feel like I should have gone when they were littler
Speaker 9: after her death. I moved out later that year, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 9: and then I never came back. That was like it,
Speaker 9: I think I finally just like it all just kind
Speaker 9: of I had an epiphany. It was a wake up time,
Speaker 9: you know, I was. I just kind of was shaken
Speaker 9: and awaken.
Speaker 11: By that.
Speaker 2: Over the course of working on this podcast, and even
Speaker 2: since the first episode came out, I've been hearing rumors
Speaker 2: about Libby's death that could take the investigation in different directions.
Speaker 2: I've heard, for example, that people other than Devon were involved,
Speaker 2: nefarious characters who may have been at the sports stadium
Speaker 2: in the day Libby died, and not just random strangers,
Speaker 2: but people in Devon's orbit. I know IPD has heard
Speaker 2: all kinds of rumors too, but as of now, they've
Speaker 2: remained just that. And I actually have a little sympathy
Speaker 2: for IPD in this regard, because every rumor I've tried
Speaker 2: to chase down seems to come to a dead end
Speaker 2: with someone's drug fueled memory and little else except for one.
Speaker 2: In late twenty twenty two, a witness came forward who
Speaker 2: claims to have seen Devon in a panic at his
Speaker 2: dad's house. The day Libby was found, but not at
Speaker 2: night in the morning, twelve hours before Devon called nine
Speaker 2: one one to report Libby's death. The witness is named Tommy.
Speaker 2: He's a friend of Devin's father, Charlie. When I interviewed him,
Speaker 2: he told me he came forward with this information five
Speaker 2: years after Libby's death because it was only then that
Speaker 2: he saw a news report about the investigation and learned
Speaker 2: what Devon had been telling police. So what happened in
Speaker 2: Room three nineteen, Libby's boyfriend told police he and Libby
Speaker 2: checked into the Sports Stadium hotel around six point thirty
Speaker 2: that morning.
Speaker 7: When I've seen that story, I was blored. I really was.
Speaker 7: That's not what happened. He had the story straight, but
Speaker 7: the timeframe was roamed.
Speaker 2: Tommy told me he had been visiting Charlie a lot
Speaker 2: around this time in late twenty seventeen, helping him in
Speaker 2: various ways through a rough patch.
Speaker 7: Charlie was going through kind of a hard time, going
Speaker 7: through divors and some other struggle, so I was helping
Speaker 7: him out to keep his kid in school so he
Speaker 7: wouldn't get BHS involved or so.
Speaker 2: Before Libby's death. At one of these visits to Charlie's house,
Speaker 2: Tommy met Devin and Libby. He saw that they too
Speaker 2: were struggling. He says he lent the money for a
Speaker 2: hotel and helped Libby with some car troubles. He also
Speaker 2: made plans with Libby to do more work on her
Speaker 2: car that Monday, December eleventh, But when Monday morning rolled around,
Speaker 2: Tommy would learn that there wasn't going to be a
Speaker 2: meetup to fix Slippy's car.
Speaker 7: I went to Charlie house pick his son up to
Speaker 7: take him to grade school. Devin and a print of
Speaker 7: his pulled up in Libby's car, and his stepbrother was
Speaker 7: just coming out of the house to get in a car,
Speaker 7: and Devin stopped her dad to ask him what he
Speaker 7: should do because he woke up and found Libby dead,
Speaker 7: hanging in the bathroom. And I remember the exact words
Speaker 7: his dad told him. I don't know if I could
Speaker 7: say it on air, but there okay, He told him,
Speaker 7: I'll tell you what to do. You get your ask
Speaker 7: back to the hotel, you call the fucking cops.
Speaker 2: And if you were to estimate around what time and.
Speaker 7: Fay was it? Well, since I was there to take
Speaker 7: Devin's stepbrother to school, I don't remember what time. Grade
Speaker 7: school starts is around eight thirty maybe eight. I'm positive
Speaker 7: it was morning time. I'm positive it was on a
Speaker 7: Monday morning.
Speaker 2: Tommy actually brought this information to the police in December
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two.
Speaker 13: Someone give me your name and so that you might
Speaker 13: have some information on the Libby.
Speaker 14: Kaz Real death.
Speaker 2: Steve Schmidley, the lead detective on Libby's case, asked Tommy,
Speaker 2: what do he knew?
Speaker 8: I know for a fact that he.
Speaker 7: Knew she was dead in the morning time.
Speaker 8: It was in morning as I seen him over there
Speaker 8: in his dad's That's when he confronted his dad.
Speaker 7: Value was in morning time.
Speaker 2: Detective Schmidley listens to what Tommy says, tries to clarify
Speaker 2: the story and response.
Speaker 13: I mean, but I mean there's consistencies for what you're saying.
Speaker 13: But you're saying that this was the morning of it.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 13: I mean, we got called that evening there roughly around
Speaker 13: eight o'clock. If you're convinced that this was that morning,
Speaker 13: I'm ninety nine point nine on that. You know, like
Speaker 13: I said, it's been a lot of years.
Speaker 8: I kind of was doubt. You know, what if maybe
Speaker 8: it was the day after Okay, well, if it was
Speaker 8: the next morning, Devin wouldn't have been there asking his
Speaker 8: dad what he should do. You know, I've got no
Speaker 8: reason to be no, absolutely be making this No, no, no, no.
Speaker 15: I don't think they're making anything up.
Speaker 13: I'd like said, there's a lot of consistencies that you're saying,
Speaker 13: you know, but it's just trying to you know, I
Speaker 13: don't know.
Speaker 9: I'm glad that you did come in.
Speaker 13: Absolutely, I don't know if this is going to change anything,
Speaker 13: because again, unfortunately, at the end of the day, you
Speaker 13: know when when Libby passed, you know, billing people in
Speaker 13: the room whom you know are probably going to be
Speaker 13: Devin and Libby. It does appear that she did hang herself.
Speaker 13: You know, the family obviously thinks that she was murdered
Speaker 13: by Devin. Obviously, if there was enough to charge Devin
Speaker 13: with a murder, again, probably aren't been charged.
Speaker 8: So obviously there's not enough at.
Speaker 13: This point to indicate the Devin and he's denied any wrongdoing.
Speaker 13: Like I said, I'm gonna take a report, right I
Speaker 13: got your phone or we need anything.
Speaker 2: If true, Tommy's story is significant because it contradicts the
Speaker 2: time Devin said he discovered Libby's body and raises questions
Speaker 2: about how he spent the day. But as far as
Speaker 2: I can tell, IPD doesn't seem alarmed or particularly interested
Speaker 2: in this new information. Maybe they don't think Tommy's story
Speaker 2: is credible, or it's just too much work to confirm
Speaker 2: or deny. Either way, I can't explain the logic or
Speaker 2: reasoning behind their actions, but former prosecutor Casey gwyn has
Speaker 2: it's his own cynical take.
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: killer would be in jail. But Libby Caswell didn't have status.
Speaker 6: She did antoun privilege. She was in nobody to the
Speaker 6: Independence Police Department and found dead in a scummy motel.
Speaker 6: I think when they got to the point that they
Speaker 6: couldn't clearly just prove that it was a homicide, they
Speaker 6: chose suicide as the easy way out of a comprehensive investigation.
Speaker 2: About six months into my investigation, I received a strange
Speaker 2: email from the Independence Police Department. They told me they
Speaker 2: were denying my most recent request for public records internal
Speaker 2: email and text messages that included Libby or Devin's name.
Speaker 2: I was confused that had already given me a bunch
Speaker 2: of material without pushback, but I quickly realized there was
Speaker 2: a reason they couldn't release any more information. Libby's case
Speaker 2: had been reopened, and, as I was later told, the
Speaker 2: FBI was now involved. I called Cindy to tell her
Speaker 2: the news as soon as I could. Hi, Hi, say,
Speaker 2: you're pulled over.
Speaker 16: I am okay.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for the noise behind me. I'm out of
Speaker 2: kid's soccer game, so that's very loud.
Speaker 16: But I wanted I wanted to.
Speaker 2: Let you know right away. So I just found out
Speaker 2: that the FBI has reopened the case.
Speaker 16: Oh my goodness, thank god.
Speaker 2: This is what Cindy had been waiting for another agency
Speaker 2: to look into the case, to investigate what IPD hadn't.
Speaker 16: I am a mixed bag. I'm excited. I'm emotional feeling,
Speaker 16: you know, because for five years we've been waiting to
Speaker 16: get justice for her, and now I feel like we're
Speaker 16: on the track. We're starting the race. Now we're going
Speaker 16: to get the right things going.
Speaker 2: In March twenty twenty three, Cindy finds herself files in
Speaker 2: hand at a drab office building in downtown Independence. She's
Speaker 2: been invited to a meeting to talk about the status
Speaker 2: of Libby's case. Cindy's eager to hear what the FBI
Speaker 2: has uncovered in the past few months, and also to
Speaker 2: meet the new IPD detective taking over for Schmidley who'd retired.
Speaker 2: But scanning the meeting room, Cindy quickly realizes Schmidley's replacement
Speaker 2: isn't there, nor is anyone from the FBI. Before she
Speaker 2: has a chance to ask any questions, Aaron Hunt, a
Speaker 2: prosecuting attorney for the county, kicks off the meeting.
Speaker 9: She just introduces herself and then she just starts talking
Speaker 9: about how they are really sorry about what has happened
Speaker 9: and given their condolences about Livy's death. Then started telling
Speaker 9: me the story of where they're at. And so she
Speaker 9: told me that this isn't a pride thing. They want
Speaker 9: justice for their citizens, They want justice for me. They
Speaker 9: wouldn't let pride standing in the way of justice. That's
Speaker 9: not what they're about.
Speaker 2: Cindy feels a pick growing in her stomach. They're trying
Speaker 2: to sugarcoat something.
Speaker 9: This FBI team, they were called the behavior Analyst team.
Speaker 9: She says they did an independent investigation of their own,
Speaker 9: and their conclusion was that my daughter committed suicide and
Speaker 9: the case is now closed. And I said to her,
Speaker 9: how could they come up with a conclusion when they
Speaker 9: didn't even gather the evidence needed to make an informed decision.
Speaker 2: Despite all the hopes Cindy had going into this meeting,
Speaker 2: this was exactly what had happened before IPD and the
Speaker 2: FBI had appeared, had shut the case once again without
Speaker 2: talking to her, without doing a full victimology, without seeming
Speaker 2: to take into consideration the undetermined ruling, or what doctor
Speaker 2: Bill Smock had found in the forensic evidence.
Speaker 9: I said, nobody even asked us. Nobody asked us anything,
Speaker 9: and then I left. I sat in my car and
Speaker 9: I cried for a long time. I just cried and
Speaker 9: drove around. I didn't really want to come home yet,
Speaker 9: because I didn't want to bring that in the house.
Speaker 9: I did not cry in front of the police.
Speaker 2: I requested public records involving libby the FBI over six
Speaker 2: months ago, but if not yet received a response. I
Speaker 2: also asked the FBI for an interview to explain the
Speaker 2: length and breadth of their investigation. They declined and deferred comment.
Speaker 2: To IPD, I was told quote, the FBI only assisted
Speaker 2: with this case. The Independence, Missouri Police Department was the
Speaker 2: lead investigator. I was really struck by the discrepancy between
Speaker 2: how the prosecuting attorney described the FBI's involvement, characterizing it,
Speaker 2: according to Cindy, as a full investigation, and how the
Speaker 2: FBI responded when I inquired, which was to distance themselves
Speaker 2: from significant involvement in the case.
Speaker 17: It is very clear that the FBI never did an
Speaker 17: independent investigation.
Speaker 5: In this case.
Speaker 2: Because Casey Gwynn has worked with law enforcement for more
Speaker 2: than three decades, I was curious what he made of this.
Speaker 17: There is always an opportunity in these cases or a
Speaker 17: local law enforcement agency to say to the FBI, we
Speaker 17: need your help, we need independent review, we need you
Speaker 17: to take over this case. We need you to come
Speaker 17: in and relook at everything we've.
Speaker 2: Done that did not happen.
Speaker 17: There is little doubt that the only thing that happened
Speaker 17: is that the FBI was asked to look at the
Speaker 17: motel room, take some pictures, take some measurements, to do
Speaker 17: an on site review. That's it, and that is not
Speaker 17: enough to conclude whether or not this with a homicide
Speaker 17: or a suicide.
Speaker 10: For the independent police Department to say that the FBI
Speaker 10: agrees with them and their conclusion is, in my opinion,
Speaker 10: one of the most dishonest things I've ever seen a
Speaker 10: police department do.
Speaker 2: I also asked Gwenn what option Cindy had left.
Speaker 17: Sooner or later somebody talks, sooner or later other evidence
Speaker 17: comes forward. We have said to Cindy, and we will
Speaker 17: continue to say. The Alliance for Hope International team.
Speaker 7: Is with you.
Speaker 17: We will not give up and will not stop, but
Speaker 17: will not back down. We will continue to advocate for
Speaker 17: justice for Libby.
Speaker 9: After all this time and all the stuff that we've
Speaker 9: been through. I'm not intimidated that easily. I just keep
Speaker 9: picking at it and i keep showing up, and I'm
Speaker 9: not going to give up if I think they didn't
Speaker 9: expect us to fight like that for this girl on
Speaker 9: the bathroom floor.
Speaker 2: This fight, it takes up a big part of Cindy's life.
Speaker 2: There are days she's optimistic and others where she feels hopeless.
Speaker 2: In between, she carries on. She's essentially a single mom,
Speaker 2: now raising Xavier as her own, and in the last
Speaker 2: few months her life has gone through some big changes.
Speaker 2: She quit her job at the Price Chopper Bakery, and
Speaker 2: she got a new job driving the special needs bus
Speaker 2: for the school district so that her work hours align
Speaker 2: with Xavier's time at school. She's also pursuing a degree
Speaker 2: in early childhood education. As this episode comes out in
Speaker 2: December twenty twenty three, it will have been six years
Speaker 2: since Libby's death. With time comes the sting of realizing
Speaker 2: how far Cindy has gone without her oldest daughter, and
Speaker 2: how her grief has been folded into a new rhythm
Speaker 2: of life.
Speaker 9: I think she would have turned twenty seven in March.
Speaker 9: Sometimes I do the math, you know, I have to
Speaker 9: get my calculator out because I forget, you know, and
Speaker 9: it makes me sad that I would forget that. But
Speaker 9: I have a lot going on. When her birthday comes around,
Speaker 9: we all go to dinner together as a family. We
Speaker 9: ask for a big table. We leave a chair open
Speaker 9: for Libby and so we toast her and we talk
Speaker 9: about all the good things and funny things that she did.
Speaker 9: We usually tip the waitress really well, because it's usually
Speaker 9: a young woman that is making her living, you know,
Speaker 9: with tips.
Speaker 2: And if Libby's case, even if it never becomes more
Speaker 2: solved or resolved than it is now. But if other
Speaker 2: things were to change, like the nuisance Slaga overturned, or
Speaker 2: independence changed how they dealt with domestic violence, would that
Speaker 2: make a difference for you in terms of thinking about
Speaker 2: what Libby's death meant.
Speaker 9: If you wouldn't ask me that a few years ago,
Speaker 9: I would have said, I'm not hearing that.
Speaker 16: You know what I mean?
Speaker 9: Now, I think there still needs to be some changes,
Speaker 9: And if I can see some changes made to help
Speaker 9: the next young woman, I think Libby would be happy
Speaker 9: with that. I think that she would be saying, right on, mom,
Speaker 9: you didn't give up.
Speaker 2: During the year and a half, I've immersed myself in
Speaker 2: Libby's story. I've had the privilege of watching Cindy change.
Speaker 2: The first time I met her, she spoke so quietly,
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure the mic was even going to pick
Speaker 2: her up. Now when we talk, she's still reserved, but
Speaker 2: she's got a certain confidence that seems to grow by
Speaker 2: the day. I wish I could give her the resolution
Speaker 2: she so desperately wants and deserves. But I still can't
Speaker 2: say for sure what happened to Libby inside Room three nineteen.
Speaker 2: I don't share this certainty that some others have expressed
Speaker 2: in this podcast. I believe it was possible, even probable,
Speaker 2: that she was murdered, based on the forensic evidence and
Speaker 2: what I've learned learn about the circumstances surrounding her death.
Speaker 2: I also believe it's not outside the realm of possibility
Speaker 2: that Libby took her own life due to pain emanating
Speaker 2: from an abusive relationship and a prolonged struggle with drug
Speaker 2: abuse that threatened the things she cared about most. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: I hope that sharing Libby's story will continue to stir
Speaker 2: up conversation, to motivate people who might have information about
Speaker 2: her death to come forward. But what I am certain
Speaker 2: about is how profoundly Libby was failed. When she was
Speaker 2: alive as a teen, she was taught through the police's
Speaker 2: actions and inactions, that her problems were a nuisance and
Speaker 2: that seeking help was likely to get her in trouble.
Speaker 2: She got the message that she had to handle it alone,
Speaker 2: and that isolation it would come to define the rest
Speaker 2: of her short life. She kept her struggles private, even
Speaker 2: as they became more and more unmanageable. I think a
Speaker 2: lot about that last week of her life, when Devin
Speaker 2: strangled her, and she finally told someone in a position
Speaker 2: of authority about his abuse. I think about how terrifying
Speaker 2: it must have been to have someone hold your life
Speaker 2: hostage literally in their hands, and how scared she was,
Speaker 2: as evidenced by her final conversations with her friends Nathan
Speaker 2: and Brian. It never should have got to the point
Speaker 2: where Libby was in that motel room with Devon. She
Speaker 2: needed help that week, months before, in years earlier, despite
Speaker 2: the fact she was exhibiting all the most critical red flags,
Speaker 2: the systems in place for people like her did not
Speaker 2: support Libby, and I consider that a failure for all
Speaker 2: of us. I wish Libby had felt less alone. I
Speaker 2: wish she had gone to the shelter when Colleen got
Speaker 2: her a bed, but that time has passed. Now all
Speaker 2: we can do is try to make the system better
Speaker 2: for victims like Libby, and it's worth saying for people
Speaker 2: who use violence too, because they also deserve saving. Often
Speaker 2: I find myself thinking about Xavier. Cindy still hasn't told
Speaker 2: him this story, but sooner or later she'll have to.
Speaker 2: I think about what we can do to make sure
Speaker 2: that boys and men who are exposed to traumatic events,
Speaker 2: get help break the cycle go on to live healthy lives.
Speaker 2: And I believe that process starts with people like Cindy.
Speaker 9: Every day after school and I get home, I sit
Speaker 9: with him and ask him about his day.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he'll answer me in.
Speaker 9: Curious George language, which is really funny, and because you know,
Speaker 9: curious George just kind of goes ah ah, and I'll
Speaker 9: say that is monkey talk. I don't know what you're saying,
Speaker 9: you know, And then I'll tickle him and laugh. He
Speaker 9: calls me mom. We tried and tried and tried to
Speaker 9: get him to call us grandma and grandpa. We've had
Speaker 9: him see psychologists and therapists and they all say, you know,
Speaker 9: it's not that he doesn't know you're not his mom.
Speaker 9: He just he sees other kids have mom and dad,
Speaker 9: and so that's why he's doing it, because when you
Speaker 9: ask him who his mom is, he says, Libby.
Speaker 2: What Happened To Libby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted
Speaker 2: by me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story editing by
Speaker 2: Marissa Brown and Lauren Hanson. This episode was edited by
Speaker 2: Jeremy Thal and Zubin Hensler. Our executive producer is Ryan
Speaker 2: Murdoch for iHeart Podcasts. Executive producers are Jason English and
Speaker 2: Katrina Norvel, with our supervising producer Carl Catel. Fact checking
Speaker 2: by Maya Shukri. Archival material courtesy of KSHB forty one News.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed
Speaker 2: Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolfe. Original music by Aaron Kaufman
Speaker 2: with additional music by Jeremy Thal and Zuben Hensler. Our
Speaker 2: episodes are mixed and mastered by Karl Catel and Zuben Hensler.
Speaker 2: I want to give a special thanks to Libby's family,
Speaker 2: especially Cindy and Natalie Caswell, as well as Libby's friends,
Speaker 2: Alliance for Hope International Sarah Plague, and countless other experts
Speaker 2: and academics who gave me their time. An extra special
Speaker 2: shout out to Pete Monica for being an early listener
Speaker 2: and a constant support, and to Eve Monica, who was
Speaker 2: born during the making of this show.
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