November 16, 2023 • 40 mins
Investigative journalist Melissa Jeltsen explores Libby’s complicated relationship with her boyfriend and their interactions with police. And, a witness comes forward with a harrowing story.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
This story can be hard to hear. There's detailed talk
of suicide and violence, but we think it's important not
to gloss over the reality of what happened to Libby Caswell.
Please take care while listening. So what age was Libby
(00:34):
when you moved into this though.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
She was in fourth grade and her and Natalie just
had chicken pox together when we moved here. Libby had
it worse than Natalie. It was in her ears and
in her mouth and on her eyelids. I mean this everywhere.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
So small, and I means fair.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm here in Independence, Missouri, standing in the living room
of the small tidy house that Libby grew up in.
I came here to immerse myself in Libby's physical world,
to meet the people who loved her, and to see
for myself the places she lived, because often those physical
spaces tell stories that people can't or won't. Libby's mom, Cindy,
(01:20):
and sister Natalie are showing me around and sharing stories
about the family through the years. There are photos of
Libby everywhere, faded childhood prints, pictures of her and her son,
and blown up portraits from a modeling shoot. She did
in her teens. Her family told me Libby loved the camera.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
She just posed and wanted to be in pictures all
her life and her son blind.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
They take me into the kitchen, where the family would
often spend time together.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
She was a pretty good cook. She really taught me
on fried chicken. She could really cook some fried chicken.
I was like, Wow, you've outdone mom.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
But mostly we stand outside Libby's old bedroom and talk.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
She always painted it some really weird colors. When we
first moved in, I painted my room pink, and she
painted hers like really bright lime green with a really
dark green trim, and it was horrible. And then she
had these big like flower stamps all over it. And
then she'd change into like red and THENTO gold and
(02:23):
it was like her little space. And she wouldn't let
me in most of the time i'd have she'd make
me knock, and then even then a lot of times
she told me to go away.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Sometimes, though Libby relented and let Natalie in. The sisters
would watch scary movies in bed, dance around to music.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
She would sit in front of her mirror and watch
herself sing, and I always would tease her and stuff
for being attitude or whatever, and she would didn't care.
She would just stare at herself in the mirror and
have like a big brush in her hand or something,
pretending to sing really loud. She was so funny.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
As a child, Libby's room was her own private sanctuary,
but as a teenager, it became a place where she
and her boyfriend Devin retreated to together.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
I never really knew what was going on because they
just kind of locked themselves in there.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Whether they were sequestered in her bedroom or just home alone.
No one saw what Libby and Devon were up to.
But her family did start to notice that little things
were different around the house, and not in a good way.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
We'd come home sometimes when they air bolts here and
things would be broken. One time we came home and
we had the picture of Jesus Stanning on the wall
and it was completely shattered.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
There was damage that often went unexplained, like a dent
in Libby's bedroom wall.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We were like, who put this hole here?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Who did this?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And everyone was like, we don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I should be clear about my reporting history here. I'm
a journalist who covers violence against women, and I tend
to focus on a specific kind of violence, domestic violence,
which occurs between people in intimate relationships. Through my decade
of reporting, I've developed a keen eye and ear for
picking it up. But I can tell you that domestic
(04:18):
violence is by design difficult to see from the outside.
Both the abuser and the person being abused have compelling
reasons to hide what's going on. But hiding a secret
of this magnitude it's a lot of work, and as
is often the case with secrets, it tends to find
a way of making itself known in a bruise, peeking
(04:41):
out from a sleeve, a whispered admission to a friend,
an argument behind not so closed doors. Take that hole
that Cindy mentioned earlier. One day, she comes home from
work and finds a hole in the wall of Libby's bedroom.
Whatever hit it dented the dry wall and splintered the
paint around it. I can tell you from my experience
(05:03):
in some homes, holes and walls are not innocent. They're
not mistakes or accidents.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
But Libby wouldn't tell her.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Family what had happened, and no one else had been
in the room, and so for a while, that's where
Cindy's story of the whole ended until I started interviewing
Libby's friends and the full picture began to emerge.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
I remember it like it was yesterday, her first Mother's Day,
she called me. I ended up shown up over at
her house and she us this in tears.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
This is Holly, one of Libby's best friends. Libby may
not have confided in her mom or her sister about
what happened that day, but she did tell Holly.
Speaker 6 (05:44):
She said that Devin had slammed her head up against
the wall and knocked her out and just left her
there unconscious.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
She didn't never tell me the extent of all the
things that happened. You know, I had to find out
after her death.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
From iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is what happened to Libby Caswell.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
It's a fun through youin.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
So what is she.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I act?
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Probably the fact that I've never put my hand in
his heart to a woman, and I did stop her
from hurting me.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
She's just been hap with her. The medical examiner ruled
Libby's death undetermined.
Speaker 6 (06:47):
They go, what do you mean? They undetermined?
Speaker 5 (06:50):
It was just like he destroyed that safe space for her.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
In her room.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
He rammed her head into the walls, hard enough to
put a dent in the wall the size of the
bowling ball, you know, And we never knew the explanation
because no one was home and no one knew.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Chapter three, Domestic Disturbance. Abusive relationships don't start with a
head slammed into a wall. They start, like most relationships do,
with flirtation and connection and excitement about what's to come.
Which is why I'm going to rewind six years before
(07:43):
Libby's body was found in a motel bathroom, six years
before her boyfriend became a suspect in her death, because
to get the full picture of Libby and Devon's relationship,
we have to start at the beginning. And at the beginning,
it was sweet.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Oh they were in love.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
They were you know, young puppy love. It was always, oh, babe,
this babe. That man had stupid nicknames that they'd call it.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
The Libby's friend Holly introduced them freshman year.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Devin was in my math class. Libby had said that
he was really cute before I knew that she was
interested in him. I was standing in the hallway with
Libby one day and Devin walked past and I was like, oh, hey, Devin.
I was like, yeah, this is liddy, and then they
started dating. I want to say, maybe three weeks after that.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Libby's mom, Cindy, remembers meeting Devon in the beginning of
their courtship. Her first impression was that he was a
charismatic kid who attracted a lot of attention from the girls.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
He reminded me of Justin Bieber. He had the long bang.
He was always like, you know, tossing his head doing
his bangs, and I thought, wow, he's really cute.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Natalie, Libby's little sister, would sometimes tag along with the
couple while they hung out.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
They were just kind of like the perfect high school couple,
you know, the varsity cheerleader and the football player, and
they seemed to really be into each other. And he'd
come over and he was always really respectful at first,
and just seemed like he was kind of the perfect
(09:19):
boyfriend at the time for her.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
But when Libby became pregnant at age sixteen, about a
year into their relationship, Natalie noticed a shift in how
Devin treated her.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
He would playfully do something or accidentally do something to
make her really upset, and she would get upset, and
he would kind of just be like, why are you overreacting.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
One of Natalie's most vivid memories is what she refers
to as the lighter incident.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
They were downstairs in the basement and he had the
lighter and he was playing with the lighter and touching
it to her because the end of it was hot,
and thought it was funny and was laughing, and she
kept telling him to quit, and then he lit it
and touched it to her leg and whatever she was
wearing caught on fire. So she campstairs just bawling, and
(10:13):
he was just like, I don't know, why are you're
acting like that? She was clearly extremely upset, and he
had burned her clothes on her leg, and he was
just like thought it was funny and was trying to
just play it off like.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
It was a joke.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
From Natalie's perspective, Devin was always pushing the limits with
libby seeing what he could get away with before she'd
get angry or burst into tears, and the limits he
pushed could sometimes involve her physical body what she would
and would not tolerate.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
It was just like little things like he would come
into her and bump her real hard or elbow her,
and then she'd get upset and he'd be like, oh,
I didn't mean to or I was just messing with
you kind of thing, and it just kind of escalated that,
like well, he would just do things all the time
like that.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Just a kid herself, Natalie wasn't sure what to make
of Devn's behavior. Maybe that's just how boys acted when
they really liked you.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
They were really young, you know, I was really young too,
so I was just like, eh, they'll figure it out.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
She wasn't the only one who noticed how Devin started
to treat Libby differently once she got pregnant.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Here's Holly again.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
He just started acting real weird. It was like it
wasn't like Libby, like him and Libby were a couple anymore.
It was just like Livy was his What do you
mean that that? Like it was like an obsession kind
of thing, and you know, he could go out and
do whatever he wants, but she couldn't even come over
and hang out with me for you know, a couple
hours after she got done at school or on a weekend.
(11:53):
She wasn't allowed to do anything. At that point, me
and her were actually hanging out one night and he
started like sending her threatening texts and stuff. It wasn't
like outright like oh, hey, I'm going to be your ass.
It was like, oh, you'll see what happens. You'll see
what happens whenever I see you again, and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Over the course of Libby's pregnancy, the couple broke up repeatedly,
but each time they got back together Natalie again.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
She would leave him for a little while, but she
was pregnant, so like things would come up where he'd
have to come or she'd want him to come to
like an appointment. I always told her, you need to
just like find someone else and move on, and he
can pay child sport or come visit him or something,
but you need to find someone else to treat you better.
(12:43):
But she wanted her family to be together, so she
always tried really hard for that to.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Happen, and Devin swore he wanted that too.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I have a handwritten letter, he wrote to Libby while
she was pregnant, quote, you and this baby are the
two biggest blessings I've had in my life. Ever, I
am more than happy. I'm honored to be your man
and father of our child. Regardless of the hardships and
challenges we've been through, it was most definitely worth it.
(13:12):
Things will get better even further down the road. Remember this,
you and me are in it until the end. But
after Xavier is born in the spring of twenty thirteen,
things don't get better. In fact, they get worse.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
My mom and dad were at work. I don't even
know what I was doing, probably going to the kitchen,
and when I passed by the bedroom that they were in,
their door was open. I had heard them arguing, like
they were kind of just like quietly talking back and forth,
but you could tell it was an argument. When I
walked past, I saw him roll her to the side
and just punch her really hard in the thigh, and
(13:52):
she cried out and started crying and was upset.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I was like, kind of like, what did did he
just hit her?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
This was the first time she'd actually seen Devin punch
her sister. She couldn't believe her eyes. Natalie felt she
needed to tell her mom right away.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And so when she got home and kind of like
confronted them about it, Libby was just like, no, you
took it wrong. You didn't see that, kind of like
she was defending him, and I was like, well, I
know what I saw and I heard it like I
could hear it. He hit you really hard, And She's
kind of just like, no, he was just playing and
(14:31):
she just defended him. And I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Libby adamantly denied that Devin hit her, not that time,
not Ever, whatever Natalie had seen had been misinterpreted. Cindy,
for her part, wasn't sure what was true, but she
wanted to believe Libby.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I kind of felt something like I would feel someone right,
or Natalie would say, Mom, they were in the bedroom
and we heard this loud slap and she cried, and
I would say, Libby, did he hit you today?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Who told you that we were just playing around or
you know, something like that. But then we've seen the
bruise on your leg.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Why would Libby try to hide the abuse from her family.
There's no way for me to truly know, but I
do have some ideas based on what I've learned from
talking to other women in similar situations. Maybe Libby felt
ashamed that her boyfriend would treat her so roughly, and
ashamed that she tolerated his behavior. Maybe she didn't want
(15:33):
to give her mom another reason not to like Devin,
still holding out hope they could become a happy, young family,
or maybe she truly believed that each time was an accident,
each time an anomaly, each time was the last. From
Cindy's recollection, this time period, the first few months after
(15:56):
Xavier is born, is incredibly chaotic and tense. Libby, at seventeen,
is trying to learn how to care for her newborn.
Libby and Devon are fighting constantly, and they break up
once again. This time, Cindy bans Devon from the house,
but Devin doesn't listen. Instead, he shows the Caswell family
(16:18):
just how much of a problem he could be.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
He would either throw eggs at the house, sit late
at night, speed up and down the street. He would
come and stand in the street and yew. He'd say,
you better let me see my son.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Cindy felt the threats were escalating, and so finally she
decides to take action. She does something that would strain
her relationship with her daughter and change the trajectory of
Libby's story, something a lot of people do when faced
with a potentially dangerous situation they can't handle alone.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
She calls the police.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I was hoping that the police would come immediately and
catch him here. That was pretty naive.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Everything falls apart in the summer of twenty thirteen, a
few months after Xavier's birth. The very first time Cindy
calls the police to report Devon. It's August second, around.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Eight at night. The police notes are.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Simple, white female and white male arguing in street. Caller
is mother of female and that's basically it. The call
is flagged as a domestic disturbance. I can't tell from
the police report if anyone talked to Libya or Devon
about what was going on, But the visit doesn't seem
to do much to abate the problem, because seven hours later,
(17:57):
Cindy calls again at three am to report that someone Devin,
she suspected, was driving up and down her sleepy street,
blasting loud music to harass them. Again, the police come,
but there's nothing to see. The car is long gone.
(18:17):
Over the next week, every time Devin shows up at
the house Cindy calls, it.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Would take him an hour, hour and a half sometimes
after a while to come and he would be long gone.
He would laugh and say, they ain't never gonna catch me.
I'm too smart for them. And yeah, he'd just run off.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And then there's the day that Devin stands across the
street from her house, shirtless, swinging a hammer. It's a
blazingly hot Monday in August, and Cindy has the day
off of work. She and Libby are inside the house
trying to keep the baby cool, and Devin's standing outside
with the hammer, yelling you better let me see my son.
(19:00):
Cindy calls IPD again once more. By the time they arrive,
Devon's gone, but the police are not particularly concerned by
whatever happened with the hammer. Instead, they're annoyed by the
frequency with which Cindy is calling nine one one and
frustrated by their encounters with Libby. The officers write in
(19:20):
their report quote IPD had responded to the address five
times in August twenty thirteen for disturbances and building checks,
all pertaining to Devn. Each time IPD has responded, Elizabeth
has been very uncooperative. I've seen this word uncooperative a
(19:41):
lot in my career, especially used to describe victims of
domestic violence.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
We have very strong stereotypes about the ways that victims
of domestic violence are supposed to act.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Lee Goodmark is the director of the Gender Violence Clinic
at the University of Maryland's care School of Law.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
So a victim of domestic violence is supposed to be
meek and weak and passive and grateful for the intervention
of police. When people don't act in conformity with this
stereotype that says a victim will do anything that they
can do to help with prosecution, then they are labeled uncooperative.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
There are many reasons why Libby might not have wanted
to quote cooperate with the police. To start, it was
her mom calling the authorities, not her. She may have
been afraid of how Devin would react, or maybe she
didn't want to see the father of her son in jail.
And as far as Cindy recalls, IPD never spoke with
Libby privately to gain more insight into her behavior and
(20:44):
never ask questions about her safety.
Speaker 7 (20:47):
Even though police have been trained for the last forty
years around these issues, around these ideas about why people
might not want to go forward with cases, why they
might be afraid to talk to police, you still see
least labeling victims uncooperative, and once a victim has that label,
they are deemed less credible.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Which is exactly what happened in this case, because instead
of offering Liby and Cindy support, IPD tells them to
stop calling altogether.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
They were like, you can't just keep calling nine one one.
You're gonna have to kick out your daughter and rectify
this situation. You can't just keep calling nine one one,
And we were like, she has a new baby. We're
not gonna throw her out in the street. She doesn't
want him here.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
IPD decides to use the law against them, invoking a
little known city ordinance that prohibits maintaining a nuisance property.
A property might be considered a nuisance if the residents
are selling drugs out of it, or accumulating dangerous junk
in the yard, or really doing anything that their neighbors
don't like. Ordinances like these are fairly common across the
(21:54):
US and often pretty vague. Much is left to the
discretion of the officers, and in some cases, a person
might be cited not for being a nuisance to their neighbors,
but to the police for calling too many times, even
if they're calling to report a crime that is being
committed against them. Hours after the police respond to the
(22:15):
hammer incident, they sent another officer to serve Cindy and
her husband Robert, with papers officially designating their house a
quote nuisance property. They're warned not to call the police
again or risk a fine. Cindy, Robert, and Libby all
sign a copy.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And so they were like, well, we have a certain
number of times that you can call, and then we're
going to press charges on you, guys. I had never
heard of that. I had never heard a nuisance to
the law in any way, and so it was just
ridiculous to me. I didn't know. Though I was naive,
(22:53):
I still trusted the police, even though I thought they
could come a little quicker when I didn't call.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Lee Goodmark again.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
The irony is that we tell people to call nine
one one if they're experiencing danger. We tell people that
police are the ones who are supposed to protect them.
We tell them that the criminal system is supposed to
intervene in these cases, and then when they try to
use that tool to do all of the things that
they're told it's going to do, they're prosecuted.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
After the Caswell's house is flagged as a nuisance, Cindy
stops calling the police. Months go by, some days are peaceful,
others not so much. And without the option of calling
the cops, Cindy takes matters into her own hands.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
One time, Im and his friend showed up outside, and
they got out of their car and was standing in
my yard and taunting and saying, what are you going
to do about it? You can't you know? What are
you going to do? And I went and got Robert's
samurai's sword and one outside.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
When Cindy told me this, I was kind of dumb
struck because I've spent a lot of time with her
and I cannot imagine her will a weapon against anyone.
She's one of the most gentle and mild mannered people
I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And the guy he was with yelled, dude, she has
a sword, and they jumped in the car and took off.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Then one cold January morning, Cindy hears Devon and Libby fighting.
It scares Cindy enough that she does something she hadn't
wanted to do since her house had been labeled a nuisance.
She calls nine one one. When the police arrive, they
handcuffed Devin, but not because of his behavior towards Libby,
(24:32):
because he had an outstanding warrant for an unpaid fine.
He's led to a patrol car, and, according to the
police report, Libby panics and tries to run after him.
The officer gives Libby a lecture, he writes in his
report quote, after a stern warning and conversation, I elected
not to arrest Libby Caswell. The officer's note reminds me
(24:55):
of what Lee Goodmark said about the stereotypes of domestic
violence victim. In this moment, Libby isn't acting meek or
passive or grateful for police intervention.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
She's not acting like a victim, so she's not.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
In my opinion, being treated like one. A couple months
go by without any more nine to one one calls,
but then one day Cindy walks into the living room
and sees Devin tackle Libby on the couch, smothering her
with his body.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
That time he laid on her and she couldn't breathe.
I called nine one one. I took a ball bat
after him and told him to get out of my house.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
IPD shows up, but Devon's gone. They come back a
few days later, this time looking for Cindy.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Three guys in a suit came with some officers and
they were like, here's your citation. Now you have a
court date.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
She and her husband Robert appear in court officially charged
with maintaining a nuisance property. They plead guilty. That was humiliating,
you know, they each have to pay a fine of
one hundred and fifty five dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
We didn't break the law. We didn't. We respected the law.
You know, we did everything we were supposed to. We
licensed our vehicles and had this amount of animals and
got their raby shots and you know, we like just
lived life like normal people.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Cindy's experience with the police, the things they did and
didn't do, it really burned her. And despite how unfair
and unjust the citation seemed, Cindy took it seriously. She
stopped calling IPD. She had lost faith in the police
ever helping them, and so she told me had Libby it.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Was kind of like it victimized her the way they
did us and didn't do anything to him.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
After all this goes down, Libby ends up moving out
of her childhood home and for the next few years
hops from apartment to apartment around town. She sometimes lives
alone or with a friend, but whenever she's with Devon.
There are more nine one one calls, this time coming
not from Cindy but from neighbors, friends, landlords. I have
(27:22):
some of the reports here. Incident type domestic disturbance. Male
and female going in and out of duplex fighting. Incident
type disturbance. Two subjects screaming and fighting. Heard something hit
the wall. Incident type domestic disturbance. Couple fighting in intersection.
(27:47):
Can hear screaming and slamming door. Has been going on
all day. Incident type domestic disturbance. Landlord called to report
that Devon Martin came to home, destroyed property and is
trying to start fight with Libby. Incident type domestic disturbance.
(28:09):
Since six a m. Caller had received texts from Libby Caswell,
female in abusive relationship, her son's father has been there
on and off all day. Caller said Libby was afraid
to call the police despite all of Cindy's calls and
the calls of neighbors and friends. Devin was never arrested
(28:31):
or charged with domestic violence. Would it have been different
if Libby was quote cooperative or was there simply no
way for the police to know what happened when the
two of them were alone. I've tried repeatedly to contact
Devon and get his side of the story, but he's
never responded. Nonetheless, in the wake of Libby's death, these
(28:54):
nine one one calls, these reports of domestic disturbances spanning
from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen, are what IPD had
as context. There was even a protective order that Cindy
obtained at one point to keep Devon away from the house.
This history of alleged domestic violence, it seems highly relevant
(29:17):
to Libby's death investigation, as by Devon's own account, she
died in a room alone with him, which is why
it's so confounding that IPD didn't ask Devon about any
of this. As far as we can tell, their long
history of domestic disputes is not noted anywhere in her
death investigation. In ipd's interview with Devon, he's not asked
(29:40):
about any of these specific incidents, and when he offers
up the claim that he had never heard Libby in
the past.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I will not ever do.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Anything the hard physically, IPD just moves on to another topic.
They really only push him about his possible involvement in
her death once and honestly not very hard.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
To put a little bit. It's something bad happened, thanks
got out of controls.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's positive that cone anything.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Help put it, help, put my hand on a viable
put it on everything I love, on my humor and
my son's like other and not everything nothing might pay never. Yeah,
when I heard it like that, it's possible that IPD
did review all these files and decided that they weren't relevant.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
To be clear, within the neatly typed.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Reports about the conflict between the couple, there's no mention
of an explicit act of physical violence, no black eyes
or broken limbs. It's all a little murky, a little messy.
And so if that was the extent of information IPD had,
maybe it would be understandable why they didn't dig into
(30:58):
the possibility of Devin's and in Libby's death any deeper.
Just accepted his version of events. But this was not
all they had. The very next day, after Devin tells
police that he'd never laid a hand on Libby, someone
comes down to the police station to report something they
(31:19):
had witnessed exactly one week earlier, something they thought might
be connected to Libby's death. Something that, if true, would
mean Devin lied to police.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't honestly know what happened,
but if there was something that was wrong, and it
needs to be, you know, brought out.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Hello, Hello, Hey.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Is that Gary?
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
This is Gary Stevens. He used to live with Devin's mother, Mindy,
and they have a child together. Devin's half brother kind.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Of looked up to me as a as a father figure.
Kind him and his father didn't get along very well,
and he kind of looked up to me, So, I mean,
that's what makes this so hard.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
In the fall of twenty seventeen, Devin asked Gary if
he and Libby could live at Gary's house for a
bit while they saved money for a new apartment.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
He was working at Sonic and I said, yeah, I'll
come on. You know, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
A month passed with no problems, Libby and Devin went
to work. Gary saw them in passing, but then one day,
while Gary was at home, he heard sounds like they
were fighting, and these sounds were disturbing enough that he
decided he had to intervene.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
I heard things and knocked off of the you know,
on the floor normally I wouldn't open up door. I knocked,
say hey, you know, but I felt something wasn't right.
So when I opened up the door, I seen Devin
was on olive and he was choking her. She was
angled Caddy corner on the bed and he was sitting
(33:08):
on top of her. And I mean it surprised him
when I opened up the door, you know, he kind
of let it turned around, she raised up, and that
I kind of lost it. I said, look, you guys
think I'm disrespecting near my house. You're not going to
do this year. You're not going to tear up my house.
You've got to go. And I'm feel bad because maybe
I shouldn't have. Maybe maybe I shouldn't have made him
(33:29):
read I don't you know, I couldn't. There could be
a thousand maybe I shouldn't, But that didn't what happened.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
This might seem like another in the long list of
troubling allegations against Devin, but strangling or choking, as Gary
called it, is a very bad sign in the history
of an abusive relationship. For context, it's estimated that each
year you US women suffer at least five million acts
of domestic violence. That's almost fourteen thousand every single day.
(34:07):
The vast majority of these incidents are not lethal, but
each day around three of these women will die at
the hands of their partners. So figuring out which victims
are at the highest risk of homicide is a priority
for anyone trying to stop this from happening, because if
you can predict which women are most likely to be
killed by their partners, you can intervene before it's too late,
(34:30):
or that's the hope. And what researchers have found is
that strangulation is a powerful predictor for future deadly violence.
Women who are strangled by their partners are over seven
times more likely to later be killed by them. It's
such an important red flag in domestic violence cases that
in hundreds of jurisdictions across the US, police are trained
(34:51):
to ask domestic violence victims if they have ever been strangled,
so that they can identify those who are at the
most risk.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
So was she on her back and he was like
straddling her, yes, okay? And he had his hands around
her throat?
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yes, okay?
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Was she making any noise?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Like?
Speaker 6 (35:10):
Was he cutting off the circle the air to her?
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Don you know, I didn't hear any noises, but I'm
sure that you know, I'm sure that's what was happening.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Only a week later, Gary heard the news that Libby
died with a belt around her neck.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
I seen on Facebook Libby had died.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
What was your initial reaction.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
I was shocked. I was very shocked. And then and
then my first thought was, well, you know what what
I just witnessed.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Gary drove down to the station and asked to speak
to someone about Libby's case.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
When I when I went in, there was a lady that,
you know, just talk through the glass at it with
a speaker, and she said, just a moment, and she
told them that they had someone with maybe information about
what had happened.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Instead of bringing him into an interview room where statements
can be recorded, an officer took a statement in the lobby,
So we don't have an audio recording of it, just
notes from IPD in Gary's recollection.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
And when a detective come out talk to me, I
just told him exactly, you know, like I explained to
you what I witnessed. Did they seem interested in the information,
like how did they react? Not? Really, they didn't really
seem to have too much you know enthusiasm about it.
They didn't say a lot, and I think maybe it
(36:37):
was still under investigation at that time, so I don't
know what they would have said.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Did you ever hear from them?
Speaker 6 (36:43):
Again?
Speaker 4 (36:44):
No, I didn't, No follow up, no, no, nothing.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Not To this day, Gary is conflicted and confused about
the meaning of what he saw.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
I honestly, I would have a hard time believing that
he would do this, although what I witnessed was you know,
that's what when I think to myself, and I've thought
this over a thousand times, do I think.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Devin did it?
Speaker 4 (37:15):
In my heart and in my mind, I want to
say no, but it goes right back to what I see.
So I don't know. I honestly do not know. Everyone
deserves to know the truth and if there was something
that was not right and someone should be held accountable.
(37:37):
I mean, I like Devon, I love him as far
as a person. I don't want to see any harm
to him, but if he was capable of doing this,
he needs to be held responsible.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
On the next episode of What Happened to Libby Caswell Well,
we learn about another secret Libby was keeping.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
I mean, I knew she was doing something, but she
just wouldn't admit it to me at.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
First, a secret that intensified an already volatile relationship.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
He was doing jokes and here's a lot of those
people that stayed up for like a week.
Speaker 6 (38:15):
And when you do that, you get crazy.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
I think got it from Y and a tip.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Grown don't make.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
What Happened To Libby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted
by me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story editing by
Maurica Brown and Lauren Hanson. Episodes are edited by Jeremy
Thal and Carl Catle. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.
For I Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvel,
(39:04):
with our supervising producer Carl Catele. Fact checking by Maya Shukri.
Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed
by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolfe. Original music by Aaron
Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Our episodes are
mixed and mastered by Carl Catle. To find out more
(39:26):
about my investigation or to send a tip, please email
me at what Happened To Libby at gmail dot com.
Thanks so much for listening so.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Fine, my so.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
In peace, in peace, and.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
So Chino.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You until.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Until on away.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
A five min so in Pieces
Speaker 4 (40:15):
In Pieces in the Dark
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
This story can be hard to hear. There's detailed talk
of suicide and violence, but we think it's important not
to gloss over the reality of what happened to Libby Caswell.
Please take care while listening. So what age was Libby
(00:34):
when you moved into this though.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
She was in fourth grade and her and Natalie just
had chicken pox together when we moved here. Libby had
it worse than Natalie. It was in her ears and
in her mouth and on her eyelids. I mean this everywhere.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
So small, and I means fair.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
I'm here in Independence, Missouri, standing in the living room
of the small tidy house that Libby grew up in.
I came here to immerse myself in Libby's physical world,
to meet the people who loved her, and to see
for myself the places she lived, because often those physical
spaces tell stories that people can't or won't. Libby's mom, Cindy,
(01:20):
and sister Natalie are showing me around and sharing stories
about the family through the years. There are photos of
Libby everywhere, faded childhood prints, pictures of her and her son,
and blown up portraits from a modeling shoot. She did
in her teens. Her family told me Libby loved the camera.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
She just posed and wanted to be in pictures all
her life and her son blind.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
They take me into the kitchen, where the family would
often spend time together.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
She was a pretty good cook. She really taught me
on fried chicken. She could really cook some fried chicken.
I was like, Wow, you've outdone mom.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
But mostly we stand outside Libby's old bedroom and talk.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
She always painted it some really weird colors. When we
first moved in, I painted my room pink, and she
painted hers like really bright lime green with a really
dark green trim, and it was horrible. And then she
had these big like flower stamps all over it. And
then she'd change into like red and THENTO gold and
(02:23):
it was like her little space. And she wouldn't let
me in most of the time i'd have she'd make
me knock, and then even then a lot of times
she told me to go away.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Sometimes, though Libby relented and let Natalie in. The sisters
would watch scary movies in bed, dance around to music.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
She would sit in front of her mirror and watch
herself sing, and I always would tease her and stuff
for being attitude or whatever, and she would didn't care.
She would just stare at herself in the mirror and
have like a big brush in her hand or something,
pretending to sing really loud. She was so funny.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
As a child, Libby's room was her own private sanctuary,
but as a teenager, it became a place where she
and her boyfriend Devin retreated to together.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
I never really knew what was going on because they
just kind of locked themselves in there.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Whether they were sequestered in her bedroom or just home alone.
No one saw what Libby and Devon were up to.
But her family did start to notice that little things
were different around the house, and not in a good way.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
We'd come home sometimes when they air bolts here and
things would be broken. One time we came home and
we had the picture of Jesus Stanning on the wall
and it was completely shattered.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
There was damage that often went unexplained, like a dent
in Libby's bedroom wall.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
We were like, who put this hole here?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Who did this?
Speaker 2 (03:54):
And everyone was like, we don't know.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I should be clear about my reporting history here. I'm
a journalist who covers violence against women, and I tend
to focus on a specific kind of violence, domestic violence,
which occurs between people in intimate relationships. Through my decade
of reporting, I've developed a keen eye and ear for
picking it up. But I can tell you that domestic
(04:18):
violence is by design difficult to see from the outside.
Both the abuser and the person being abused have compelling
reasons to hide what's going on. But hiding a secret
of this magnitude it's a lot of work, and as
is often the case with secrets, it tends to find
a way of making itself known in a bruise, peeking
(04:41):
out from a sleeve, a whispered admission to a friend,
an argument behind not so closed doors. Take that hole
that Cindy mentioned earlier. One day, she comes home from
work and finds a hole in the wall of Libby's bedroom.
Whatever hit it dented the dry wall and splintered the
paint around it. I can tell you from my experience
(05:03):
in some homes, holes and walls are not innocent. They're
not mistakes or accidents.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
But Libby wouldn't tell her.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Family what had happened, and no one else had been
in the room, and so for a while, that's where
Cindy's story of the whole ended until I started interviewing
Libby's friends and the full picture began to emerge.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
I remember it like it was yesterday, her first Mother's Day,
she called me. I ended up shown up over at
her house and she us this in tears.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
This is Holly, one of Libby's best friends. Libby may
not have confided in her mom or her sister about
what happened that day, but she did tell Holly.
Speaker 6 (05:44):
She said that Devin had slammed her head up against
the wall and knocked her out and just left her
there unconscious.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
She didn't never tell me the extent of all the
things that happened. You know, I had to find out
after her death.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
From iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is what happened to Libby Caswell.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
It's a fun through youin.
Speaker 6 (06:29):
So what is she.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I act?
Speaker 6 (06:35):
Probably the fact that I've never put my hand in
his heart to a woman, and I did stop her
from hurting me.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
She's just been hap with her. The medical examiner ruled
Libby's death undetermined.
Speaker 6 (06:47):
They go, what do you mean? They undetermined?
Speaker 5 (06:50):
It was just like he destroyed that safe space for her.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
In her room.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
He rammed her head into the walls, hard enough to
put a dent in the wall the size of the
bowling ball, you know, And we never knew the explanation
because no one was home and no one knew.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Chapter three, Domestic Disturbance. Abusive relationships don't start with a
head slammed into a wall. They start, like most relationships do,
with flirtation and connection and excitement about what's to come.
Which is why I'm going to rewind six years before
(07:43):
Libby's body was found in a motel bathroom, six years
before her boyfriend became a suspect in her death, because
to get the full picture of Libby and Devon's relationship,
we have to start at the beginning. And at the beginning,
it was sweet.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Oh they were in love.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
They were you know, young puppy love. It was always, oh, babe,
this babe. That man had stupid nicknames that they'd call it.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
The Libby's friend Holly introduced them freshman year.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
Devin was in my math class. Libby had said that
he was really cute before I knew that she was
interested in him. I was standing in the hallway with
Libby one day and Devin walked past and I was like, oh, hey, Devin.
I was like, yeah, this is liddy, and then they
started dating. I want to say, maybe three weeks after that.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Libby's mom, Cindy, remembers meeting Devon in the beginning of
their courtship. Her first impression was that he was a
charismatic kid who attracted a lot of attention from the girls.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
He reminded me of Justin Bieber. He had the long bang.
He was always like, you know, tossing his head doing
his bangs, and I thought, wow, he's really cute.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Natalie, Libby's little sister, would sometimes tag along with the
couple while they hung out.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
They were just kind of like the perfect high school couple,
you know, the varsity cheerleader and the football player, and
they seemed to really be into each other. And he'd
come over and he was always really respectful at first,
and just seemed like he was kind of the perfect
(09:19):
boyfriend at the time for her.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
But when Libby became pregnant at age sixteen, about a
year into their relationship, Natalie noticed a shift in how
Devin treated her.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
He would playfully do something or accidentally do something to
make her really upset, and she would get upset, and
he would kind of just be like, why are you overreacting.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
One of Natalie's most vivid memories is what she refers
to as the lighter incident.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
They were downstairs in the basement and he had the
lighter and he was playing with the lighter and touching
it to her because the end of it was hot,
and thought it was funny and was laughing, and she
kept telling him to quit, and then he lit it
and touched it to her leg and whatever she was
wearing caught on fire. So she campstairs just bawling, and
(10:13):
he was just like, I don't know, why are you're
acting like that? She was clearly extremely upset, and he
had burned her clothes on her leg, and he was
just like thought it was funny and was trying to
just play it off like.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
It was a joke.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
From Natalie's perspective, Devin was always pushing the limits with
libby seeing what he could get away with before she'd
get angry or burst into tears, and the limits he
pushed could sometimes involve her physical body what she would
and would not tolerate.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
It was just like little things like he would come
into her and bump her real hard or elbow her,
and then she'd get upset and he'd be like, oh,
I didn't mean to or I was just messing with
you kind of thing, and it just kind of escalated that,
like well, he would just do things all the time
like that.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Just a kid herself, Natalie wasn't sure what to make
of Devn's behavior. Maybe that's just how boys acted when
they really liked you.
Speaker 5 (11:16):
They were really young, you know, I was really young too,
so I was just like, eh, they'll figure it out.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
She wasn't the only one who noticed how Devin started
to treat Libby differently once she got pregnant.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Here's Holly again.
Speaker 6 (11:29):
He just started acting real weird. It was like it
wasn't like Libby, like him and Libby were a couple anymore.
It was just like Livy was his What do you
mean that that? Like it was like an obsession kind
of thing, and you know, he could go out and
do whatever he wants, but she couldn't even come over
and hang out with me for you know, a couple
hours after she got done at school or on a weekend.
(11:53):
She wasn't allowed to do anything. At that point, me
and her were actually hanging out one night and he
started like sending her threatening texts and stuff. It wasn't
like outright like oh, hey, I'm going to be your ass.
It was like, oh, you'll see what happens. You'll see
what happens whenever I see you again, and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Over the course of Libby's pregnancy, the couple broke up repeatedly,
but each time they got back together Natalie again.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
She would leave him for a little while, but she
was pregnant, so like things would come up where he'd
have to come or she'd want him to come to
like an appointment. I always told her, you need to
just like find someone else and move on, and he
can pay child sport or come visit him or something,
but you need to find someone else to treat you better.
(12:43):
But she wanted her family to be together, so she
always tried really hard for that to.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Happen, and Devin swore he wanted that too.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I have a handwritten letter, he wrote to Libby while
she was pregnant, quote, you and this baby are the
two biggest blessings I've had in my life. Ever, I
am more than happy. I'm honored to be your man
and father of our child. Regardless of the hardships and
challenges we've been through, it was most definitely worth it.
(13:12):
Things will get better even further down the road. Remember this,
you and me are in it until the end. But
after Xavier is born in the spring of twenty thirteen,
things don't get better. In fact, they get worse.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
My mom and dad were at work. I don't even
know what I was doing, probably going to the kitchen,
and when I passed by the bedroom that they were in,
their door was open. I had heard them arguing, like
they were kind of just like quietly talking back and forth,
but you could tell it was an argument. When I
walked past, I saw him roll her to the side
and just punch her really hard in the thigh, and
(13:52):
she cried out and started crying and was upset.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
I was like, kind of like, what did did he
just hit her?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
This was the first time she'd actually seen Devin punch
her sister. She couldn't believe her eyes. Natalie felt she
needed to tell her mom right away.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And so when she got home and kind of like
confronted them about it, Libby was just like, no, you
took it wrong. You didn't see that, kind of like
she was defending him, and I was like, well, I
know what I saw and I heard it like I
could hear it. He hit you really hard, And She's
kind of just like, no, he was just playing and
(14:31):
she just defended him. And I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Libby adamantly denied that Devin hit her, not that time,
not Ever, whatever Natalie had seen had been misinterpreted. Cindy,
for her part, wasn't sure what was true, but she
wanted to believe Libby.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
I kind of felt something like I would feel someone right,
or Natalie would say, Mom, they were in the bedroom
and we heard this loud slap and she cried, and
I would say, Libby, did he hit you today?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Who told you that we were just playing around or
you know, something like that. But then we've seen the
bruise on your leg.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Why would Libby try to hide the abuse from her family.
There's no way for me to truly know, but I
do have some ideas based on what I've learned from
talking to other women in similar situations. Maybe Libby felt
ashamed that her boyfriend would treat her so roughly, and
ashamed that she tolerated his behavior. Maybe she didn't want
(15:33):
to give her mom another reason not to like Devin,
still holding out hope they could become a happy, young family,
or maybe she truly believed that each time was an accident,
each time an anomaly, each time was the last. From
Cindy's recollection, this time period, the first few months after
(15:56):
Xavier is born, is incredibly chaotic and tense. Libby, at seventeen,
is trying to learn how to care for her newborn.
Libby and Devon are fighting constantly, and they break up
once again. This time, Cindy bans Devon from the house,
but Devin doesn't listen. Instead, he shows the Caswell family
(16:18):
just how much of a problem he could be.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
He would either throw eggs at the house, sit late
at night, speed up and down the street. He would
come and stand in the street and yew. He'd say,
you better let me see my son.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
Cindy felt the threats were escalating, and so finally she
decides to take action. She does something that would strain
her relationship with her daughter and change the trajectory of
Libby's story, something a lot of people do when faced
with a potentially dangerous situation they can't handle alone.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
She calls the police.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I was hoping that the police would come immediately and
catch him here. That was pretty naive.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Everything falls apart in the summer of twenty thirteen, a
few months after Xavier's birth. The very first time Cindy
calls the police to report Devon. It's August second, around.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Eight at night. The police notes are.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Simple, white female and white male arguing in street. Caller
is mother of female and that's basically it. The call
is flagged as a domestic disturbance. I can't tell from
the police report if anyone talked to Libya or Devon
about what was going on, But the visit doesn't seem
to do much to abate the problem, because seven hours later,
(17:57):
Cindy calls again at three am to report that someone Devin,
she suspected, was driving up and down her sleepy street,
blasting loud music to harass them. Again, the police come,
but there's nothing to see. The car is long gone.
(18:17):
Over the next week, every time Devin shows up at
the house Cindy calls, it.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Would take him an hour, hour and a half sometimes
after a while to come and he would be long gone.
He would laugh and say, they ain't never gonna catch me.
I'm too smart for them. And yeah, he'd just run off.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And then there's the day that Devin stands across the
street from her house, shirtless, swinging a hammer. It's a
blazingly hot Monday in August, and Cindy has the day
off of work. She and Libby are inside the house
trying to keep the baby cool, and Devin's standing outside
with the hammer, yelling you better let me see my son.
(19:00):
Cindy calls IPD again once more. By the time they arrive,
Devon's gone, but the police are not particularly concerned by
whatever happened with the hammer. Instead, they're annoyed by the
frequency with which Cindy is calling nine one one and
frustrated by their encounters with Libby. The officers write in
(19:20):
their report quote IPD had responded to the address five
times in August twenty thirteen for disturbances and building checks,
all pertaining to Devn. Each time IPD has responded, Elizabeth
has been very uncooperative. I've seen this word uncooperative a
(19:41):
lot in my career, especially used to describe victims of
domestic violence.
Speaker 7 (19:47):
We have very strong stereotypes about the ways that victims
of domestic violence are supposed to act.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Lee Goodmark is the director of the Gender Violence Clinic
at the University of Maryland's care School of Law.
Speaker 7 (20:01):
So a victim of domestic violence is supposed to be
meek and weak and passive and grateful for the intervention
of police. When people don't act in conformity with this
stereotype that says a victim will do anything that they
can do to help with prosecution, then they are labeled uncooperative.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
There are many reasons why Libby might not have wanted
to quote cooperate with the police. To start, it was
her mom calling the authorities, not her. She may have
been afraid of how Devin would react, or maybe she
didn't want to see the father of her son in jail.
And as far as Cindy recalls, IPD never spoke with
Libby privately to gain more insight into her behavior and
(20:44):
never ask questions about her safety.
Speaker 7 (20:47):
Even though police have been trained for the last forty
years around these issues, around these ideas about why people
might not want to go forward with cases, why they
might be afraid to talk to police, you still see
least labeling victims uncooperative, and once a victim has that label,
they are deemed less credible.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Which is exactly what happened in this case, because instead
of offering Liby and Cindy support, IPD tells them to
stop calling altogether.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
They were like, you can't just keep calling nine one one.
You're gonna have to kick out your daughter and rectify
this situation. You can't just keep calling nine one one,
And we were like, she has a new baby. We're
not gonna throw her out in the street. She doesn't
want him here.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
IPD decides to use the law against them, invoking a
little known city ordinance that prohibits maintaining a nuisance property.
A property might be considered a nuisance if the residents
are selling drugs out of it, or accumulating dangerous junk
in the yard, or really doing anything that their neighbors
don't like. Ordinances like these are fairly common across the
(21:54):
US and often pretty vague. Much is left to the
discretion of the officers, and in some cases, a person
might be cited not for being a nuisance to their neighbors,
but to the police for calling too many times, even
if they're calling to report a crime that is being
committed against them. Hours after the police respond to the
(22:15):
hammer incident, they sent another officer to serve Cindy and
her husband Robert, with papers officially designating their house a
quote nuisance property. They're warned not to call the police
again or risk a fine. Cindy, Robert, and Libby all
sign a copy.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
And so they were like, well, we have a certain
number of times that you can call, and then we're
going to press charges on you, guys. I had never
heard of that. I had never heard a nuisance to
the law in any way, and so it was just
ridiculous to me. I didn't know. Though I was naive,
(22:53):
I still trusted the police, even though I thought they
could come a little quicker when I didn't call.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Lee Goodmark again.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
The irony is that we tell people to call nine
one one if they're experiencing danger. We tell people that
police are the ones who are supposed to protect them.
We tell them that the criminal system is supposed to
intervene in these cases, and then when they try to
use that tool to do all of the things that
they're told it's going to do, they're prosecuted.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
After the Caswell's house is flagged as a nuisance, Cindy
stops calling the police. Months go by, some days are peaceful,
others not so much. And without the option of calling
the cops, Cindy takes matters into her own hands.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
One time, Im and his friend showed up outside, and
they got out of their car and was standing in
my yard and taunting and saying, what are you going
to do about it? You can't you know? What are
you going to do? And I went and got Robert's
samurai's sword and one outside.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
When Cindy told me this, I was kind of dumb
struck because I've spent a lot of time with her
and I cannot imagine her will a weapon against anyone.
She's one of the most gentle and mild mannered people
I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And the guy he was with yelled, dude, she has
a sword, and they jumped in the car and took off.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Then one cold January morning, Cindy hears Devon and Libby fighting.
It scares Cindy enough that she does something she hadn't
wanted to do since her house had been labeled a nuisance.
She calls nine one one. When the police arrive, they
handcuffed Devin, but not because of his behavior towards Libby,
(24:32):
because he had an outstanding warrant for an unpaid fine.
He's led to a patrol car, and, according to the
police report, Libby panics and tries to run after him.
The officer gives Libby a lecture, he writes in his
report quote, after a stern warning and conversation, I elected
not to arrest Libby Caswell. The officer's note reminds me
(24:55):
of what Lee Goodmark said about the stereotypes of domestic
violence victim. In this moment, Libby isn't acting meek or
passive or grateful for police intervention.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
She's not acting like a victim, so she's not.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
In my opinion, being treated like one. A couple months
go by without any more nine to one one calls,
but then one day Cindy walks into the living room
and sees Devin tackle Libby on the couch, smothering her
with his body.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
That time he laid on her and she couldn't breathe.
I called nine one one. I took a ball bat
after him and told him to get out of my house.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
IPD shows up, but Devon's gone. They come back a
few days later, this time looking for Cindy.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Three guys in a suit came with some officers and
they were like, here's your citation. Now you have a
court date.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
She and her husband Robert appear in court officially charged
with maintaining a nuisance property. They plead guilty. That was humiliating,
you know, they each have to pay a fine of
one hundred and fifty five dollars.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
We didn't break the law. We didn't. We respected the law.
You know, we did everything we were supposed to. We
licensed our vehicles and had this amount of animals and
got their raby shots and you know, we like just
lived life like normal people.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Cindy's experience with the police, the things they did and
didn't do, it really burned her. And despite how unfair
and unjust the citation seemed, Cindy took it seriously. She
stopped calling IPD. She had lost faith in the police
ever helping them, and so she told me had Libby it.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Was kind of like it victimized her the way they
did us and didn't do anything to him.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
After all this goes down, Libby ends up moving out
of her childhood home and for the next few years
hops from apartment to apartment around town. She sometimes lives
alone or with a friend, but whenever she's with Devon.
There are more nine one one calls, this time coming
not from Cindy but from neighbors, friends, landlords. I have
(27:22):
some of the reports here. Incident type domestic disturbance. Male
and female going in and out of duplex fighting. Incident
type disturbance. Two subjects screaming and fighting. Heard something hit
the wall. Incident type domestic disturbance. Couple fighting in intersection.
(27:47):
Can hear screaming and slamming door. Has been going on
all day. Incident type domestic disturbance. Landlord called to report
that Devon Martin came to home, destroyed property and is
trying to start fight with Libby. Incident type domestic disturbance.
(28:09):
Since six a m. Caller had received texts from Libby Caswell,
female in abusive relationship, her son's father has been there
on and off all day. Caller said Libby was afraid
to call the police despite all of Cindy's calls and
the calls of neighbors and friends. Devin was never arrested
(28:31):
or charged with domestic violence. Would it have been different
if Libby was quote cooperative or was there simply no
way for the police to know what happened when the
two of them were alone. I've tried repeatedly to contact
Devon and get his side of the story, but he's
never responded. Nonetheless, in the wake of Libby's death, these
(28:54):
nine one one calls, these reports of domestic disturbances spanning
from twenty thirteen to twenty seventeen, are what IPD had
as context. There was even a protective order that Cindy
obtained at one point to keep Devon away from the house.
This history of alleged domestic violence, it seems highly relevant
(29:17):
to Libby's death investigation, as by Devon's own account, she
died in a room alone with him, which is why
it's so confounding that IPD didn't ask Devon about any
of this. As far as we can tell, their long
history of domestic disputes is not noted anywhere in her
death investigation. In ipd's interview with Devon, he's not asked
(29:40):
about any of these specific incidents, and when he offers
up the claim that he had never heard Libby in
the past.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I will not ever do.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Anything the hard physically, IPD just moves on to another topic.
They really only push him about his possible involvement in
her death once and honestly not very hard.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
To put a little bit. It's something bad happened, thanks
got out of controls.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
It's positive that cone anything.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Help put it, help, put my hand on a viable
put it on everything I love, on my humor and
my son's like other and not everything nothing might pay never. Yeah,
when I heard it like that, it's possible that IPD
did review all these files and decided that they weren't relevant.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
To be clear, within the neatly typed.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Reports about the conflict between the couple, there's no mention
of an explicit act of physical violence, no black eyes
or broken limbs. It's all a little murky, a little messy.
And so if that was the extent of information IPD had,
maybe it would be understandable why they didn't dig into
(30:58):
the possibility of Devin's and in Libby's death any deeper.
Just accepted his version of events. But this was not
all they had. The very next day, after Devin tells
police that he'd never laid a hand on Libby, someone
comes down to the police station to report something they
(31:19):
had witnessed exactly one week earlier, something they thought might
be connected to Libby's death. Something that, if true, would
mean Devin lied to police.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah. I mean, you know, I don't honestly know what happened,
but if there was something that was wrong, and it
needs to be, you know, brought out.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Hello, Hello, Hey.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Is that Gary?
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
This is Gary Stevens. He used to live with Devin's mother, Mindy,
and they have a child together. Devin's half brother kind.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Of looked up to me as a as a father figure.
Kind him and his father didn't get along very well,
and he kind of looked up to me, So, I mean,
that's what makes this so hard.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
In the fall of twenty seventeen, Devin asked Gary if
he and Libby could live at Gary's house for a
bit while they saved money for a new apartment.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
He was working at Sonic and I said, yeah, I'll
come on. You know, it's fine.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
A month passed with no problems, Libby and Devin went
to work. Gary saw them in passing, but then one day,
while Gary was at home, he heard sounds like they
were fighting, and these sounds were disturbing enough that he
decided he had to intervene.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
I heard things and knocked off of the you know,
on the floor normally I wouldn't open up door. I knocked,
say hey, you know, but I felt something wasn't right.
So when I opened up the door, I seen Devin
was on olive and he was choking her. She was
angled Caddy corner on the bed and he was sitting
(33:08):
on top of her. And I mean it surprised him
when I opened up the door, you know, he kind
of let it turned around, she raised up, and that
I kind of lost it. I said, look, you guys
think I'm disrespecting near my house. You're not going to
do this year. You're not going to tear up my house.
You've got to go. And I'm feel bad because maybe
I shouldn't have. Maybe maybe I shouldn't have made him
(33:29):
read I don't you know, I couldn't. There could be
a thousand maybe I shouldn't, But that didn't what happened.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
This might seem like another in the long list of
troubling allegations against Devin, but strangling or choking, as Gary
called it, is a very bad sign in the history
of an abusive relationship. For context, it's estimated that each
year you US women suffer at least five million acts
of domestic violence. That's almost fourteen thousand every single day.
(34:07):
The vast majority of these incidents are not lethal, but
each day around three of these women will die at
the hands of their partners. So figuring out which victims
are at the highest risk of homicide is a priority
for anyone trying to stop this from happening, because if
you can predict which women are most likely to be
killed by their partners, you can intervene before it's too late,
(34:30):
or that's the hope. And what researchers have found is
that strangulation is a powerful predictor for future deadly violence.
Women who are strangled by their partners are over seven
times more likely to later be killed by them. It's
such an important red flag in domestic violence cases that
in hundreds of jurisdictions across the US, police are trained
(34:51):
to ask domestic violence victims if they have ever been strangled,
so that they can identify those who are at the
most risk.
Speaker 6 (34:58):
So was she on her back and he was like
straddling her, yes, okay? And he had his hands around
her throat?
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Yes, okay?
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Was she making any noise?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
Like?
Speaker 6 (35:10):
Was he cutting off the circle the air to her?
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Don you know, I didn't hear any noises, but I'm
sure that you know, I'm sure that's what was happening.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Only a week later, Gary heard the news that Libby
died with a belt around her neck.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
I seen on Facebook Libby had died.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
What was your initial reaction.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
I was shocked. I was very shocked. And then and
then my first thought was, well, you know what what
I just witnessed.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Gary drove down to the station and asked to speak
to someone about Libby's case.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
When I when I went in, there was a lady that,
you know, just talk through the glass at it with
a speaker, and she said, just a moment, and she
told them that they had someone with maybe information about
what had happened.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Instead of bringing him into an interview room where statements
can be recorded, an officer took a statement in the lobby,
So we don't have an audio recording of it, just
notes from IPD in Gary's recollection.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
And when a detective come out talk to me, I
just told him exactly, you know, like I explained to
you what I witnessed. Did they seem interested in the information,
like how did they react? Not? Really, they didn't really
seem to have too much you know enthusiasm about it.
They didn't say a lot, and I think maybe it
(36:37):
was still under investigation at that time, so I don't
know what they would have said.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Did you ever hear from them?
Speaker 6 (36:43):
Again?
Speaker 4 (36:44):
No, I didn't, No follow up, no, no, nothing.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Not To this day, Gary is conflicted and confused about
the meaning of what he saw.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
I honestly, I would have a hard time believing that
he would do this, although what I witnessed was you know,
that's what when I think to myself, and I've thought
this over a thousand times, do I think.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Devin did it?
Speaker 4 (37:15):
In my heart and in my mind, I want to
say no, but it goes right back to what I see.
So I don't know. I honestly do not know. Everyone
deserves to know the truth and if there was something
that was not right and someone should be held accountable.
(37:37):
I mean, I like Devon, I love him as far
as a person. I don't want to see any harm
to him, but if he was capable of doing this,
he needs to be held responsible.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
On the next episode of What Happened to Libby Caswell Well,
we learn about another secret Libby was keeping.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
I mean, I knew she was doing something, but she
just wouldn't admit it to me at.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
First, a secret that intensified an already volatile relationship.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
He was doing jokes and here's a lot of those
people that stayed up for like a week.
Speaker 6 (38:15):
And when you do that, you get crazy.
Speaker 4 (38:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
I think got it from Y and a tip.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
Grown don't make.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
What Happened To Libby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted
by me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story editing by
Maurica Brown and Lauren Hanson. Episodes are edited by Jeremy
Thal and Carl Catle. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.
For I Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvel,
(39:04):
with our supervising producer Carl Catele. Fact checking by Maya Shukri.
Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed
by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolfe. Original music by Aaron
Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Our episodes are
mixed and mastered by Carl Catle. To find out more
(39:26):
about my investigation or to send a tip, please email
me at what Happened To Libby at gmail dot com.
Thanks so much for listening so.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Fine, my so.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
In peace, in peace, and.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
So Chino.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You until.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Until on away.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
A five min so in Pieces
Speaker 4 (40:15):
In Pieces in the Dark
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