December 8, 2023 • 44 mins
A forensic expert discovers evidence that upends the official narrative about Libby’s death and points to a coverup. Local police defend their work.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is an iHeart original. 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.
(00:25):
Feeling safe is a privilege a lot of people in
domestic violence relationships don't have, and by the end of
her life, a sense of security seemed to have eloted
Libby wherever she went. She said as much to her
sister Natalie the last time she saw her.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
And she said she would know I'm here and it's
not safe for you, and it's not safe for Zape.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And to her friend Nathan the last time she saw him,
Libby don't get me and said, I don't think I
feel safe with Devin anymore. Her parent aid Colleen picked
up on the danger lurking around Libby during their last visit.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I felt like she needed to be in a safe place.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It wasn't just how Devin treated her, the physical and
emotional abuse that made Libby feel unsafe. It was also
the people Devin hung out with and the illicit and
risky activities he engaged in. Frequently. Devin was accused of
stealing many times, particularly it seemed from people he knew,
small things like TVs and cell phones, big things like cars, cash, drugs.
(01:31):
These kinds of behaviors gave Devin a reputation left a
lot of bad will in his wake. They also, by association,
added an extra level of danger to Libby's life. Libby
admitted as much to Cindy.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
She talked about it a lot that last you know
twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
She was like, he knows some bad people. There's a
Facebook post I came across on Libby's page that I
keep thinking about. It's from August fourteenth, twenty sixteen. Libby
posted a close up photo of herself. You can't see
her full face, but her cheek is bruised and her
neck has numerous cuts and scratches. Libby writes that two
(02:13):
nights earlier, she had been walking to a seven eleven
when she was attacked by a stranger. The man forced
her behind a building and strangled her until she blacked out.
She says she later woke up and discovered that the
zipper of her pants was broken. She writes, quote, in
between being in and out of consciousness, I remember him
(02:35):
mentioning my baby daddy end quote. Devin, Natalie, and Cindy
both told me about this incident the first time I
met with them. Libby had called Natalie after she came
to She.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Woke up behind somewhere seven eleven is what she said,
and next to.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
A dumpster or something like that. So she was laying
there all night. She had woken up and her pants
were down and the zipper was broken.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
Yeah, she peed on herself.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, and she was she couldn't freeze very well, and
she was trying to get a hold of mom, and
she was saying to have mom.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Count figure up my picture up down, you know, in
kind of a bad part of town.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Libby was still visibly terrified when Cindy arrived, and she
looked pretty beat up. She told her mom she didn't
remember much about what had happened after she was attacked,
which could explain why she had urinated on herself. When
strangulation victims lose consciousness, it's common to also lose control
of their bladders.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
You know. She had bruises and scratches and tried to
talk her and to go and get a make a
report and go to the hospital, and she was very
scared at that point.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
She told me a lot of the detail about the
guy and that he shouldn't. He was choking her on
and off, and she thought that that was going to
be the day she died. I remember saying that she
thought that Devin had done something to him, and she
told this guy that he could do this to her
(04:14):
for payment of whatever it was.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
She thinks that he was sending people to get her.
And I used to think maybe she was just paranoid,
because you know, maybe she was using again and you
know how they get sometimes they just kind of feel
like that. But that actually happened to her, and I
have pictures of it. She was upset and balling, so
(04:38):
I was like, you know, this is this enough? Are
you gonna you know, is this going to be the
time or are you just gonna die? You know, because
you are going to die if you continue this way?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
From iHeart Podcasts, I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is what
happened to Libby Caswell. There's a fuzz, you win?
Speaker 6 (05:10):
So what is she?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And I was as fit.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Into who wait across?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
She was just somebody that I really wanted to help.
Speaker 7 (05:35):
I'd say, if one is a really poor investigation and
ten is a perfect investigation.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I'd give him a point five.
Speaker 8 (05:43):
Cindy struck me as somebody that was just getting stonewalled
at every turn.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
Did you ever hear from them again?
Speaker 8 (05:51):
No? I did no follow up, no, no nothing. The
medical examiner ruled Libby's death undetermined. I go, what do
you mean? They ruled undetermined?
Speaker 5 (06:03):
She started advising me, get your stuff together, because this
is going to be the fight of your life.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Chapter six. The twist.
Speaker 8 (06:44):
We had reached out, you know, to the medical exam
were like, okay, what do you what are you talking about?
Why is this undetermined?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
One of the biggest most perplexing questions I've had with
this case is why Libby's death was ruled undetermined by
the medical examiner. And it turns out the Independence Police
Department wanted that answer too.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
And there's really no explanation, just yeah, it's undetermined. I
had reached out, Oh, I don't know, maybe personally, maybe
a half a dozen times.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
IPD Major Mike Anka said he wanted clarity from doctor
Robert pi Tak, the deputy medical examiner who performed Libby's autopsy.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
I would go at it so non confrontational I'm not questioning.
I'm not I'm not doing anything. I just need to
know some more details. I need to know a little
bit more about what's going on, but why this is undetermined,
so we can we can do something different here. Because
I don't feel good about this. This sits really really
(07:48):
bad inside me that this has been ruled undetermined.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Pi Tak doesn't explain his reasoning in the autopsy report,
and he since left Jackson County. He now works as
a medical examiner in Florida. I've tried to reach him
many times unsuccessfully. I've also tried to get comment from
the current medical examiner without luck. However, based on my research,
I do have a theory about why doctor pi Tak
(08:13):
ruled Libby's death undetermined. In twenty thirteen, the Jackson County
Medical Examiner's office, including doctor Pytak, came under intense scrutiny.
An investigation by the Kansas City Star brought to light
that pi Tack had made a series of rulings that
he later reversed. One involved a young woman who was
(08:34):
found with the trash bag over her head. Pi Tak
initially ruled that death a suicide, but it was later
changed to undetermined. Another involved a woman whose body was
found covered in bleach with a red mark across her neck.
PI Tak ruled that death an accident. It was later
changed to homicide, and a man confessed. PI Tak defended
(08:57):
his work in both cases. Beyond that, the investigation uncovered
that the Jackson County Medical Examiner's Office was disregarding best
practices and failing to autopsy around three quarters of suspected
suicides every year, allowing possible murders to slip through. After
all this, it's not hard to imagine that PI tech
(09:19):
would be extremely cautious going forward in ruling a death
a suicide when the forensic evidence was inconclusive. Whether my
theory is true or not, it leads me to another
equally perplexing question. Given the undetermined ruling, why did IPD
close the case without any further investigation? I asked Major
(09:42):
Anka about this.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
It sounds like this was a very unusual situation that
you're rarely, if ever, got these undetermined So this choice
to close it at this stage versus like leaving it open.
If you could sort of talk me through the reasoning,
I think it.
Speaker 8 (09:59):
Was more more of just there's nothing more at this
point I can do because we're not we're not experts
when it comes to body examinations. I can look at
a body and say that's got bruises, that's got marks,
that's got this. I don't have the training and the
expertise to say what caused that. So that's what we were
trying to get, was we were trying to get that
information from the resident expert. We just never got it.
(10:23):
So at that point, you know, Detective Spleley I made
the determination to close it.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
With the case closed, Cindy was left to pour over
the investigative files herself, looking for clues on how to
move forward.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
The light at the end of the tunnel for me
was that the emmy stuck by, you know, undetermined.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It seemed to her that the undetermined ruling was an
opportunity that forensics might be the key to finding more answers.
Speaker 9 (10:51):
The medical examiner ruling it undetermined has been a gift
in that the door open for another agency to re
examine the physical evidence.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
This is doctor Bill Smock, director of the Clinical Forensic
Medicine Program for the Louisville Metro Police Department. He's an
expert in cases where a person dies from asphyxia or
lack of oxygen. You heard from him a little bit
in episode one. After Cindy's private investigator, Jim Murray, had
taken Libby's case as far as he could, Cindy reached
(11:28):
out to doctor Smock.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
I told him my story. I said, here's the facts.
I have all this information.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Doctor Smock spent a month reviewing Libby's case, analyzing the
autopsy report, studying hundreds of photos of her body, and
even reconstructing her death using a weighted dummy and a belt.
He ultimately documented his findings in an eighty four page PowerPoint.
It's actually a big reason why I decided to explore
Libby's death in this podcast. Smock believes the Jackson County
(12:02):
Medical Examiner missed or misinterpreted a slew of forensic evidence
in Libby's autopsy, and his analysis is very compelling. Smock
began his investigation by looking closely at the marks around
Libby's neck.
Speaker 9 (12:17):
There's physical evidence on Libby's neck that was transferred from
the belt ligature to her skin.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
A ligature is anything that's used to tie or bind something.
In this case, doctor Smock is referring to Devon's belt,
which was made of fabric, had visible stitching and grommets
around the belt holes. When wrapped around Libby's neck, the
belt created recognizable patterns on her skin.
Speaker 9 (12:46):
So the first thing I did was to look at
the photos of the belt and determine what part of
the belt had to be in what position in order
to create that imprint.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Doctor Smock explained to me that in a hanging, the
place where the ligature is nodded. In this case, the
belt buckle will almost always rotate to the back of
the head.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
That is the physics of a hanging.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
But he found evidence of the belt buckle pressing into
the front of her neck.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So that was the first thing that jumped out of me, and.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
There was something else. Typically in a hanging, Smock says,
you will see a mark that goes almost all the
way around the person's neck, like a ring, almost but
not quite the point where the ligature is fastened. Again, here,
the belt buckle will raise up off the back of
the neck where it's attached to a suspension point, So
(13:40):
the mark that's left behind has a gap. The circle
is not complete. But this is not what he saw
on Libby.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
What was documented in the autopsy was circumferential marks around
the neck.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That too, is inconsistent with the hanging.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
So in Layman's terms, the imprint from the belve went
all the way around her neck instead of an unbroken line,
and there wasn't a gap.
Speaker 9 (14:04):
Correct, there was not a gap, and when you hang
yourself there is always a gap at the back of
the neck.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Smock also found a small but crucial detail. The pattern
of bruising around Libby's neck was consistent with a belt
that laid flat, But when Libby was found the belt
around her neck had a single twist in it, meaning
that the belt had been twisted once before it was
threaded through the buckle. Doctor Smock explained to me that
(14:32):
if the belt had a twist in it when Libby died,
we should be able to see that mark on her skin.
Speaker 9 (14:38):
The injuries did not come from a twisted belt. If
the belt were twisted when pressure was applied, you would
expect a different pattern on Libby's neck.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
When you look at the imprints that are there.
Speaker 9 (14:50):
The belt wasn't twisted, so that tells me that at
some point the belt was placed back on her neck
and it was.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Twisted discovery, in particular, gave credence to a theory doctor
Smock was developing about Libby's death, one that he didn't
think had been considered by the Jackson County Medical Examiner's
Office or the IPD. That the belt had been used
a number of times on Libby's body.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
The belt that was around Libby's neck is somewhat unique
in that it has gromets holes in the belt. When
I look closely at the autopsy photos and the scene photos,
there's evidence of these gromet marks in areas other than
where the belt was around her neck.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So what that tells me is.
Speaker 9 (15:40):
That at some point those grameuts created other pattern injuries,
which is why the belt, in my opinion, was a
plaid at least twice, maybe even three times.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Smock suspects not only that someone put the belt around
Libby's neck, but that they also wrapped that same belt
around Libby's chest, trying to restrain her and maybe even
use the force of their own body weight to pull
the belt tighter.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
There's a unique bruising pattern right in the middle of
her back, which to me appears to be consistent with
a bootprint or a shoeprint. How does that get there?
Doesn't get there from a suicidal hanging.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
This is a lot to take in and when I
first read it in the pdf Smock sent me, it
stopped me cold. If Smock is right, this being restrained
then strangled is a very violent and a very scary
way to die. And it means that though doctor Smock
agrees with the Jackson County Medical Examiner's opinion that Libby
(16:45):
ultimately died from asphyxia, he has a very different opinion
about how it happened.
Speaker 9 (16:51):
It was clear that the physical evidence, principally the marks
on Libby's neck, were not consistent with a suicidal hanging,
were consistent with a homicide.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Doctor Smock took his conclusion a step further.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
Libby's death was in fact a homicide stage to look
like a suicide. There is no doubt that Libby was
murdered and the scene was altered and things were staged.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
A staged murder is a big accusation. The implication is
that someone or someone's murdered Libby then methodically staged the
scene to send authorities in the wrong direction. Smock believes
this theory explains a lot of the evidence at the scene,
including the mark on the top of the bathroom door.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
There is evidence of green fibers on the top of
the door, so I do think at some point the
belt was over the top of the door if she
was hanging.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
I do not think she hung herself.
Speaker 9 (17:54):
I think it would take two individuals to place her
body up there. When you look at the location of
the tub and the door, I think it's physically impossible
for an individual to stand on the side of the tub,
put the belt over there, close the door, and then.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Jump off stage.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Crime scenes are pretty rare, but often have telltale signs
if you know what to look for. Smock wanted to
know if IPD had ever considered the possibility. Maybe he
thought it wasn't even on their radar, which is.
Speaker 9 (18:28):
Why I called the Independence Police Department. I talked to
Captain Mike Anka. I told Mike, what I would like
to do is to meet with you, your detectives, the
current medical examiner, and your local prosecutor, present the case
and why, in my opinion, based upon the physical evidence alone,
(18:49):
this is a homicide stage to look like a suicide.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
IPD Major Mike Anka told doctor Bill Smock that he
was eager to hear his analysis of Libby's case. Alca
said that by this point, two years after Libby's death,
IPD had exhausted everything they could do.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
He had reached out and I had a lot of
conversations with him. I set up the meeting with him
and the current medical examiner, and then we had the prosecutor.
We had Cindy in the room.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
I came alone. I came straight from work. Bill asked
me not to say too much, and so I sat quietly.
And it was just a big room, and it was
packed with detectives, police officers, Emmy, the prosecuting attorney, Michael Hunt.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
The meeting takes place on January thirteenth, twenty twenty, in
a third floor conference room of the Independence Police Department's
downtown headquarters. Doctor Pytak had left the department by then,
but the county's chief medical examiner, Marius Treu attends in
his place. Doctor Bell Smock arrives with Beth Weekly, a
(20:03):
forensic nurse who had also studied Libby's case. And it
starts off well enough.
Speaker 9 (20:08):
It was very cordial. Invited in as a law enforcement colleague.
I was there to present the case and answer any questions.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Smock brings the PowerPoint presentation he'd made of his findings,
which includes forensic analysis, crime scene studies, and photos of
a recreation he did of Libby's injuries.
Speaker 9 (20:31):
Was circumferential marks around the point those gramas created other
pattern injuries.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Beljuries did not come from a twisted belt.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
The prosecutor and the detectives in the room take it
all in, but according to Anka, the chief medical examiner
pushes back.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
Doctor Smock had his you know, his theories and his beliefs.
He would say the belt caused this and this, and
then the other doc said, yeah, the belt could have
caused this and this and this, but don't you agree
that this could have caused this? And this turned into
the two doctors kind of debating back and forth. Obviously,
(21:10):
both of them are trained, both of them are very knowledgeable,
but a lot of what they were talking about was
way beyond anybody else's in the room's skill set knowledge.
We didn't get anything out of it other than some
of the injuries could have been caused by homicide. Some
(21:32):
of the injuries could have been caused by suicide. There
was never a definitive answer as to what we were looking.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
At but Beth Weekly, the forensic nurse, remembers the situation
a little differently.
Speaker 10 (21:44):
I remember the medical examiner. I found him very defensive
and abrasive, and he's entitled to his opinion that I
remember him being extremely defensive about anything that contradicted. In
the end, it was frustrating to kind of see this resistance,
(22:06):
and frankly, I just think it boils down to no
one wants to admit they did something wrong.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Cindy told me she felt the same way.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
They seemed put off that anybody was questioning that they
didn't have the skill to investigate this properly.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
They were very.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
I would say, almost rude in laughing us off.
Speaker 9 (22:31):
At the end, it was clear I didn't convince them.
The medical examiner said, yeah, it may be, but he
said it wasn't my case. I wasn't there, and we
need to contact the pathologists who did the autopsy. So
I made that effort and no response.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Doctor Smock and his team were left with little hope
that Libby's case was going to get any more attention
from IPD, and without a new investigation, the prosecuting attorney
wasn't going to pursue charges.
Speaker 9 (23:05):
The prosecutor. Mister Hunt said, yeah, it may be a homicide,
but if I can't win it, I'm not going to
take the case.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I asked the Jackson County Prosecutor's office about this meeting,
but they declined to comment.
Speaker 10 (23:21):
We left and exchanged pleasantries and said we'll be in touch.
But you could sense that it was not anything that
they were pumped up about to like, yes, let's reopen
this up and get excited about to make a bad
situation better.
Speaker 9 (23:39):
I felt that that was the cowards way out, that
it was going to be an uphill battle to have independence.
Whether it's the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office or the police
department want or be willing to take a closer look
at the evidence that I presented to them. Libby's case
(24:01):
stands out in my mind and keeps me awake at night.
We see ineptitude, inadequate investigation, turning a blind eye to
the physical evidence on the part of the independence police department,
on the part of the Medical Examiner's office, on the
part of the Prosecutor's office. This case, of doing thousands
(24:25):
of cases in my career, stands out as the most
clear staged homicide and having been involved in thousands of
investigations in my career, this is the one that says
you did not do your job.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
You could have done it.
Speaker 9 (24:48):
We have a young woman who has been murdered and
those three agencies are failing to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
For Cindy. The meeting was another gut punch.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
In the lobby of the police department, there's a huge
glass thing that reads to serve and protect the citizens
of Independence and it, I.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Mean, it just.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
Goes totally against what my experience was as a human
being living in Independence. I left there just totally discouraged.
And by the time I got home, Bill was calling
me and he said, well that didn't go as I planned,
you know, But he said, let me tell you this
so Cindy, we don't give up this in the end.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And good on his word, Doctor Bill Smock wasn't taking
no for an answer. He was already pursuing another angle.
Speaker 7 (25:45):
After Bill got involved in it. Then he reached out
to me and to the rest of our team and said,
I believe we've got a stage crime scene.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Casey Gwinn is a former prosecutor who has spent his
career working on how to better serve domestic violence victims.
He's one of the founders of the domestic violence organization
Alliance for Hope International, where Bill Smock also consults.
Speaker 7 (26:11):
Bill Smock really took the forensic side of this, and
the rest of our team took the victimology, which is
really the history of a relationship and understanding the history
of the life of the victim and her relationship to
the potential suspect.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Gwinn was appalled at the lack of background investigation that
IPD had done in Libby's case.
Speaker 7 (26:33):
Why wouldn't you do a comprehensive investigation when you've got
a history of domestic violence and then you've got a
dead body. That should be a cardinal rule in every
law enforcement agency in America. That is homicide investigation, suspicious
death investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
One oh one.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
You always want to know that entire history, and you
should want to know what his history is with other
women as well, And you would have to interview You'd
have to identify his prior girlfriends, you'd have to interviews friends,
You've have to introduce family members.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Since the mid nineteen nineties, Alliance for Hope has primarily
focused on preventing domestic violence homicides, But in twenty seventeen
the organization expanded into a different type of work, consulting
on cases involving domestic violence victims where the crime scene
was potentially staged. These cases come to them directly from victims'
(27:30):
families like Cindy, and also from prosecutors and police across
the country who are stumped on how to proceed. Alliance
for Hope believes there may be hundreds, maybe even more
than a thousand deaths of domestic violence victims in the
US each year that are going undetected, written off by
local law enforcement as unfortunate accidents or tragic suicides, when
(27:55):
in actuality, there is a perpetrator who has never been
held to account.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
We now call this the Hidden Homicides Project. Our focus
is on cases where there is a death after a
history of domestic violence. We now have about twenty active
cases at the present time. Every time we speak somewhere,
we are learning of more cases.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
They recently had their first major success a case in
Colorado where after doctor Smock got involved, a husband was
convicted of murdering his wife seven years after he tried
to make her death look like an accident to help
law enforcement understand how to spot such cases. Alliance for
Hope has come up with a checklist of ten red
(28:41):
flags commonalities among the stage murders that've uncovered. When Gwynn
compared his checklist to Libby's case, he was shocked.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Number one the victim dies prematurely or the victim dies unexpectedly.
Number two the scene appears to be a suicide.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
We'll go on to the bathroom, and I found her
conscious and it felt wrapped around her neck.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
Number three one partner wanted to end the relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
All she wanted to do was clean up and get
things right and get away from him.
Speaker 8 (29:16):
That was literally her goals on her table every time
we talked to her.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
Number four there was a prior history of domestic violence.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
That time he laid on her and she couldn't breathe.
I called nine one one.
Speaker 7 (29:27):
Number five the victim was found dead in a home
or in a place where they've been living or staying.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
They won the room so they can have some alone time.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Number six the victim is found by the current or
previous partner and found Number seven the prior history of
domestic violence includes an act of strangulation or suffocation when they.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Would get in fights and it would be really bad.
He would push her, hold her down, and choke her.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
Number eight the partner is the last person to see
the victim alive. I took a shower, remember.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Laying on the bed and passing out.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Number nine the partner has control of the crime scene
before the police arrived at eleven am this morning, and
then at that point you remained as sleep at the
entire time that you woke up this evening. Number ten,
the body has been moved or the scene or evidence
has been altered in some way, but he's.
Speaker 8 (30:24):
All the way clear on the right side of the toilet.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Steel just didn't make sense.
Speaker 7 (30:29):
We have every factor that we've identified in the Libby
Caswell case. That's enough for me to say, these red
flags are not just waving, they're screaming at you.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
If one is.
Speaker 7 (30:41):
A really poor investigation and ten is a perfect investigation,
I'd give him a point five.
Speaker 8 (30:54):
Initially I thought somebody killed Lobby, whether it was Devin,
whether somebody else. Obviously he was the most logical because
he was there. But you know, you can't just you
can't let those opinions influence you have to That's fine
to have them but you have to you have to
go by the facts and the evidence that you have.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Now that I'd heard doctor Smock and Casey Gwinn's criticisms
of IPD, I wanted to ask Major Mike Anka about
how short their investigation was and how they seemed to
make up their mind so quickly that it was suicide.
I mean, they told Cindy that night that Libby had
killed herself. Unca brought me back to the crime scene.
When IPD first got to the motel.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
We came out working this like a homicide. Hence why
we called a pio, why we called a captain, Why
we called two sergeants and two squads of detectives.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
So you're at the scene, there's a bunch of people
have arrived, right, There's like over a dozen people there.
They're processing the scene. We're still approaching it as a
potential homicide. What happens next, like does that change that
evening that it starts to move towards what had happened?
Speaker 8 (32:14):
Is so, I, along with several others, had responded back
to the station we were in in the process conducting interviews.
We were in our briefing room and I had gotten
a phone call from the sergeant on scene, and he
had told me that you're standing there with our crime
scene tech and the medical examiner was on scene, and
(32:37):
the medical examiner had said, everybody slowed down. This is
not a homicide. This is a suicide. So that's kind
of what slowed down and changed gears, is that the
medical examiner's on scene and they're saying, you guys are
blowing this out of a portion.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
But the medical examiner that Anca's referring to wasn't a
medical examiner at all. She wasn't a doctor. She was
a recent college grad in an entry level position at
the Jackson County Medical Examiner's office called investigator one. And
this comment she allegedly made wasn't noted anywhere in her
(33:14):
report that night, nor in any of ipd's notes.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
Let me ask you a question about that. The medical
examiner on seeing it was a medical examiner's investigator, right,
not medical examiner.
Speaker 8 (33:26):
Yeah, that's the way they operate here in the state.
Speaker 6 (33:29):
To send out an investigator. And when I look at
the contact sheet that shows who was on seeing that night,
I can see who that investigator was, and she it
was a woman who was twenty four years old every
stout there. It looks like she'd been working there for
about six months. And I asked her about this to
(33:51):
see what her recollections were, and she said she didn't
remember the scene, that she'd been to a bunch that
she said it was not her all to determine manner
of death, and that her role as an investigator was
just to gather the evidence and bring it back for
the autopsy. So she really pushed back and said it
(34:12):
wasn't up to her to guide the investigation in any direction.
Speaker 8 (34:18):
Right, No, And that's exactly true, and that's why we
finished what we were doing. But like I kind of
mentioned earlier, and I'm not I don't want I'm not
going to get into pinning us against the medical examiner
or nothing like that, because we we've got a good
working relationship.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Unca went on to explain that IPD didn't just immediately
stop their work after hearing the perspective of Investigator one,
but nonetheless it did change how they were thinking about
the case.
Speaker 8 (34:43):
I told the guys, we're going to go ahead and
we're going to finish everything we're doing. But medical examiners
saying that this is a suicide, this is not a homicide.
So that's that's what changed the year. That's what went
from you know, we were we were running a gun
and on it like a homicide, and we were inness
and shout Dad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
This question, what happened to change the focus of the
investigation from homicide to suicide. It's one that's been nagging
at me since I first started working on Libby's story.
I figured there had to be something more, something I
wasn't getting. I spoke to Major Anka for more than
an hour. He was unfailingly polite the entire time, listened
(35:24):
to my questions and answered each one. He seemed forthright,
and honestly, I got the impression he really did want
to help. But the answer I kept getting about what
changed that night was simply unsatisfying. It felt to me
like the police, without realizing what they were doing, might
have been primed to deem this case of suicide from
(35:47):
the beginning because of simple confirmation bias.
Speaker 7 (35:51):
The challenges for law enforcement really start right at the
scene where they first arrive.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Here's Casey Gwyn again.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
Face this framing of it as a suicide or as
an accident scene, and that confirmation bias then just begins
to expand moment by moment, day by day, and as
they pass on information to the next investigator or the
next medical person or the forensic medical examiner. It seems
(36:21):
that that confirmation bias that starts at the scene of
the crime contaminates the rest of the investigation in many
of these cases.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
In Libby's case, Devin called in her death as a suicide,
and then at the scene the medical examiner's investigator also
allegedly remarked that it looked like a suicide. Back at
the station, Devin and Nick both talked about Libby's suppose
suicidal ideations, and then IPD found the mark on top
(36:53):
of the motel bathroom door. Because of confirmation bias, it
might have been easy for IPD to latch onto evidence
that confirmed the suicide story and overlook evidence that pointed
the other way, and this kind of thinking could have
permeated the choices IPD made throughout their investigation, choices that
(37:14):
to outside experts like Casey Gwynn and doctor Smock now
seem questionable. For example, IPD chose not to explore Devon's
alibi that he had slept all day found to be
dead when he woke up around eight pm and then
went directly to his dad's house, an alibi that was
made ever more flimsy when Devon was caught on camera
(37:36):
seemingly asking his dad and stepmom to lie about his whereabouts.
IPD could have confirmed Devon's alibi by going back to
the sports stadium in to get the security footage from
the parking lot, but when I asked Anka about this,
he admitted the crime scene investigator made a mistake.
Speaker 8 (37:56):
He was instructed to go back and get that later
failed to do so. Never did. That's the one piece
that would have been wonderful to have that would put
my mind ease. Is Devon out walking around all day long,
in and out. He's saying he slept. If if we
had that video, we could tell he was out walking
around if any you know, obviously many things you know
(38:17):
to go back and do and do different. That video
is probably the number one. Yeah, Yeah, we were. We
wish we'd had that video.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
In the days and weeks after Libby's death, IPD could
have conducted more interviews, talk to those who knew Libby
and Devin best what Casey Quinn called victimology and suspectology
one oh one to their credit. IPD did eventually conduct
more interviews in twenty nineteen after Cindy's private investigator, Jim Murray,
(38:47):
brought his concerns to their attention.
Speaker 8 (38:49):
When Jim got involved and I started talking to Cindy,
the case that was opened back up. I gave it
a fresh of eyes with another detective and another sergeant.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
One of the things IPD did was follow up on
a tip that Devin confessed to Libby's murder to his
new girlfriend, but this was a dead end. The new
girlfriend wouldn't talk, and when IPD interviewed her mom and
her sister, each of them denied having heard anything. The
new detectives assigned to Libby's case also interviewed Devin again.
(39:21):
They asked him to go over the events of that night,
and Devin told them basically the same story.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Got out of the shower, Libby was going to take
a shower, and Libby for a talking to an argument
about how she didn't think that he was going to
be able to stop using.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Police press him on a few details like the broken
watch and the argument overheard by another motel guest, but
the most notable difference about this second round of questioning
is that they specifically ask him about domestic violence.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Is it possible that you messed up around the stake?
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Now, It's not possible because I know that that's not me.
I've never in my life where when you get real high,
I've never been that high that they're not you though
I've never it is, it's never.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's not that.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
It's not that I would never harm a woman, never, never,
no matter, no matter live. I got sad wounds in
my back from.
Speaker 8 (40:15):
Living hitting me with a steak knife.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Never did I put hands on her.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
If you're rest, I've never not want.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
My life and I would do anything in my power
bringing back to hit me with the steak knife ore time.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You know what I'm saying to given what I have
uncovered about Devin's abusive behavior, domestic disturbance, what you've heard
in this podcast, what IPD would have had in their
own files, distance two subjects screaming and fighting or something
hit the wall. The extent of their questioning feels woefully
(40:48):
brief and under researched. They don't press him on any specifics,
and so that's it. The case is soon closed again
as a suicide. When I asked Uncle about this, he
said it was out of his hands. Even with the
work done by Jim Murray, the presentation by doctor Bill Smock,
(41:11):
and the additional investigation by IPD, they didn't have enough
evidence to convince the Prosecutor's office to move forward.
Speaker 8 (41:19):
I feel having kids myself, and I don't want to
get dramatic, but I'm broken hearted for Cindy. I can't
imagine what she's going through and what she's went through
and what she's continuing to go through. So the human
side of me is heart wrenching.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
UNCA has been open to the many outsiders, including me,
who have wanted to re examine Libby's case.
Speaker 8 (41:44):
So I'll just be candid and I don't have that arrogant,
condescending nature about me. I don't put myself on a
pedestal above anybody. I'm probably one of the last ones
in the room that bought that this was a suicide,
that this was an homicide. So for me, if you know,
if you can come up with something we haven't thought of,
by all means, let me have it.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Coming up on what happened to Libby Caswell, we learn
about Devin's life both before and after Libby. If anybody
knows Devin it's me because I'm the one that raised him,
and Devin reacts to the shadow of suspicion he's been
living under.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Is ruining my life and people need to leave me alone.
And that's that's how I feel about it, because I'm
the one who lost someone dearly to me.
Speaker 8 (42:42):
I think from ring and.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Keep you grown, don't.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
What Happened Toby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted by
me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story editing by Marisa
Brown and Lauren Hanson. Episodes are edited by Jeremy Thal
and Carl Catle. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch. For
iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvel,
(43:22):
with our supervising producer Carl Catle. Fact checking by Maya Shukri.
Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed
by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Woolf. Original music by Aaron
Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Our episodes are
mixed and mastered by Carl Catle. To find out more
(43:43):
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
Originals.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is an iHeart original. 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.
(00:25):
Feeling safe is a privilege a lot of people in
domestic violence relationships don't have, and by the end of
her life, a sense of security seemed to have eloted
Libby wherever she went. She said as much to her
sister Natalie the last time she saw her.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
And she said she would know I'm here and it's
not safe for you, and it's not safe for Zape.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
And to her friend Nathan the last time she saw him,
Libby don't get me and said, I don't think I
feel safe with Devin anymore. Her parent aid Colleen picked
up on the danger lurking around Libby during their last visit.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
I felt like she needed to be in a safe place.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It wasn't just how Devin treated her, the physical and
emotional abuse that made Libby feel unsafe. It was also
the people Devin hung out with and the illicit and
risky activities he engaged in. Frequently. Devin was accused of
stealing many times, particularly it seemed from people he knew,
small things like TVs and cell phones, big things like cars, cash, drugs.
(01:31):
These kinds of behaviors gave Devin a reputation left a
lot of bad will in his wake. They also, by association,
added an extra level of danger to Libby's life. Libby
admitted as much to Cindy.
Speaker 5 (01:46):
She talked about it a lot that last you know
twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
She was like, he knows some bad people. There's a
Facebook post I came across on Libby's page that I
keep thinking about. It's from August fourteenth, twenty sixteen. Libby
posted a close up photo of herself. You can't see
her full face, but her cheek is bruised and her
neck has numerous cuts and scratches. Libby writes that two
(02:13):
nights earlier, she had been walking to a seven eleven
when she was attacked by a stranger. The man forced
her behind a building and strangled her until she blacked out.
She says she later woke up and discovered that the
zipper of her pants was broken. She writes, quote, in
between being in and out of consciousness, I remember him
(02:35):
mentioning my baby daddy end quote. Devin, Natalie, and Cindy
both told me about this incident the first time I
met with them. Libby had called Natalie after she came
to She.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Woke up behind somewhere seven eleven is what she said,
and next to.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
A dumpster or something like that. So she was laying
there all night. She had woken up and her pants
were down and the zipper was broken.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
Yeah, she peed on herself.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yeah, and she was she couldn't freeze very well, and
she was trying to get a hold of mom, and
she was saying to have mom.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Count figure up my picture up down, you know, in
kind of a bad part of town.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Libby was still visibly terrified when Cindy arrived, and she
looked pretty beat up. She told her mom she didn't
remember much about what had happened after she was attacked,
which could explain why she had urinated on herself. When
strangulation victims lose consciousness, it's common to also lose control
of their bladders.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
You know. She had bruises and scratches and tried to
talk her and to go and get a make a
report and go to the hospital, and she was very
scared at that point.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
She told me a lot of the detail about the
guy and that he shouldn't. He was choking her on
and off, and she thought that that was going to
be the day she died. I remember saying that she
thought that Devin had done something to him, and she
told this guy that he could do this to her
(04:14):
for payment of whatever it was.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
She thinks that he was sending people to get her.
And I used to think maybe she was just paranoid,
because you know, maybe she was using again and you
know how they get sometimes they just kind of feel
like that. But that actually happened to her, and I
have pictures of it. She was upset and balling, so
(04:38):
I was like, you know, this is this enough? Are
you gonna you know, is this going to be the
time or are you just gonna die? You know, because
you are going to die if you continue this way?
Speaker 2 (04:51):
From iHeart Podcasts, I'm Melissa Jelson, and this is what
happened to Libby Caswell. There's a fuzz, you win?
Speaker 6 (05:10):
So what is she?
Speaker 3 (05:18):
And I was as fit.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
Into who wait across?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
She was just somebody that I really wanted to help.
Speaker 7 (05:35):
I'd say, if one is a really poor investigation and
ten is a perfect investigation.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I'd give him a point five.
Speaker 8 (05:43):
Cindy struck me as somebody that was just getting stonewalled
at every turn.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
Did you ever hear from them again?
Speaker 8 (05:51):
No? I did no follow up, no, no nothing. The
medical examiner ruled Libby's death undetermined. I go, what do
you mean? They ruled undetermined?
Speaker 5 (06:03):
She started advising me, get your stuff together, because this
is going to be the fight of your life.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Chapter six. The twist.
Speaker 8 (06:44):
We had reached out, you know, to the medical exam
were like, okay, what do you what are you talking about?
Why is this undetermined?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
One of the biggest most perplexing questions I've had with
this case is why Libby's death was ruled undetermined by
the medical examiner. And it turns out the Independence Police
Department wanted that answer too.
Speaker 8 (07:06):
And there's really no explanation, just yeah, it's undetermined. I
had reached out, Oh, I don't know, maybe personally, maybe
a half a dozen times.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
IPD Major Mike Anka said he wanted clarity from doctor
Robert pi Tak, the deputy medical examiner who performed Libby's autopsy.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
I would go at it so non confrontational I'm not questioning.
I'm not I'm not doing anything. I just need to
know some more details. I need to know a little
bit more about what's going on, but why this is undetermined,
so we can we can do something different here. Because
I don't feel good about this. This sits really really
(07:48):
bad inside me that this has been ruled undetermined.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Pi Tak doesn't explain his reasoning in the autopsy report,
and he since left Jackson County. He now works as
a medical examiner in Florida. I've tried to reach him
many times unsuccessfully. I've also tried to get comment from
the current medical examiner without luck. However, based on my research,
I do have a theory about why doctor pi Tak
(08:13):
ruled Libby's death undetermined. In twenty thirteen, the Jackson County
Medical Examiner's office, including doctor Pytak, came under intense scrutiny.
An investigation by the Kansas City Star brought to light
that pi Tack had made a series of rulings that
he later reversed. One involved a young woman who was
(08:34):
found with the trash bag over her head. Pi Tak
initially ruled that death a suicide, but it was later
changed to undetermined. Another involved a woman whose body was
found covered in bleach with a red mark across her neck.
PI Tak ruled that death an accident. It was later
changed to homicide, and a man confessed. PI Tak defended
(08:57):
his work in both cases. Beyond that, the investigation uncovered
that the Jackson County Medical Examiner's Office was disregarding best
practices and failing to autopsy around three quarters of suspected
suicides every year, allowing possible murders to slip through. After
all this, it's not hard to imagine that PI tech
(09:19):
would be extremely cautious going forward in ruling a death
a suicide when the forensic evidence was inconclusive. Whether my
theory is true or not, it leads me to another
equally perplexing question. Given the undetermined ruling, why did IPD
close the case without any further investigation? I asked Major
(09:42):
Anka about this.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
It sounds like this was a very unusual situation that
you're rarely, if ever, got these undetermined So this choice
to close it at this stage versus like leaving it open.
If you could sort of talk me through the reasoning,
I think it.
Speaker 8 (09:59):
Was more more of just there's nothing more at this
point I can do because we're not we're not experts
when it comes to body examinations. I can look at
a body and say that's got bruises, that's got marks,
that's got this. I don't have the training and the
expertise to say what caused that. So that's what we were
trying to get, was we were trying to get that
information from the resident expert. We just never got it.
(10:23):
So at that point, you know, Detective Spleley I made
the determination to close it.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
With the case closed, Cindy was left to pour over
the investigative files herself, looking for clues on how to
move forward.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
The light at the end of the tunnel for me
was that the emmy stuck by, you know, undetermined.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It seemed to her that the undetermined ruling was an
opportunity that forensics might be the key to finding more answers.
Speaker 9 (10:51):
The medical examiner ruling it undetermined has been a gift
in that the door open for another agency to re
examine the physical evidence.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
This is doctor Bill Smock, director of the Clinical Forensic
Medicine Program for the Louisville Metro Police Department. He's an
expert in cases where a person dies from asphyxia or
lack of oxygen. You heard from him a little bit
in episode one. After Cindy's private investigator, Jim Murray, had
taken Libby's case as far as he could, Cindy reached
(11:28):
out to doctor Smock.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
I told him my story. I said, here's the facts.
I have all this information.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Doctor Smock spent a month reviewing Libby's case, analyzing the
autopsy report, studying hundreds of photos of her body, and
even reconstructing her death using a weighted dummy and a belt.
He ultimately documented his findings in an eighty four page PowerPoint.
It's actually a big reason why I decided to explore
Libby's death in this podcast. Smock believes the Jackson County
(12:02):
Medical Examiner missed or misinterpreted a slew of forensic evidence
in Libby's autopsy, and his analysis is very compelling. Smock
began his investigation by looking closely at the marks around
Libby's neck.
Speaker 9 (12:17):
There's physical evidence on Libby's neck that was transferred from
the belt ligature to her skin.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
A ligature is anything that's used to tie or bind something.
In this case, doctor Smock is referring to Devon's belt,
which was made of fabric, had visible stitching and grommets
around the belt holes. When wrapped around Libby's neck, the
belt created recognizable patterns on her skin.
Speaker 9 (12:46):
So the first thing I did was to look at
the photos of the belt and determine what part of
the belt had to be in what position in order
to create that imprint.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Doctor Smock explained to me that in a hanging, the
place where the ligature is nodded. In this case, the
belt buckle will almost always rotate to the back of
the head.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
That is the physics of a hanging.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
But he found evidence of the belt buckle pressing into
the front of her neck.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So that was the first thing that jumped out of me, and.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
There was something else. Typically in a hanging, Smock says,
you will see a mark that goes almost all the
way around the person's neck, like a ring, almost but
not quite the point where the ligature is fastened. Again, here,
the belt buckle will raise up off the back of
the neck where it's attached to a suspension point, So
(13:40):
the mark that's left behind has a gap. The circle
is not complete. But this is not what he saw
on Libby.
Speaker 9 (13:48):
What was documented in the autopsy was circumferential marks around
the neck.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
That too, is inconsistent with the hanging.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
So in Layman's terms, the imprint from the belve went
all the way around her neck instead of an unbroken line,
and there wasn't a gap.
Speaker 9 (14:04):
Correct, there was not a gap, and when you hang
yourself there is always a gap at the back of
the neck.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Smock also found a small but crucial detail. The pattern
of bruising around Libby's neck was consistent with a belt
that laid flat, But when Libby was found the belt
around her neck had a single twist in it, meaning
that the belt had been twisted once before it was
threaded through the buckle. Doctor Smock explained to me that
(14:32):
if the belt had a twist in it when Libby died,
we should be able to see that mark on her skin.
Speaker 9 (14:38):
The injuries did not come from a twisted belt. If
the belt were twisted when pressure was applied, you would
expect a different pattern on Libby's neck.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
When you look at the imprints that are there.
Speaker 9 (14:50):
The belt wasn't twisted, so that tells me that at
some point the belt was placed back on her neck
and it was.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Twisted discovery, in particular, gave credence to a theory doctor
Smock was developing about Libby's death, one that he didn't
think had been considered by the Jackson County Medical Examiner's
Office or the IPD. That the belt had been used
a number of times on Libby's body.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
The belt that was around Libby's neck is somewhat unique
in that it has gromets holes in the belt. When
I look closely at the autopsy photos and the scene photos,
there's evidence of these gromet marks in areas other than
where the belt was around her neck.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
So what that tells me is.
Speaker 9 (15:40):
That at some point those grameuts created other pattern injuries,
which is why the belt, in my opinion, was a
plaid at least twice, maybe even three times.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Smock suspects not only that someone put the belt around
Libby's neck, but that they also wrapped that same belt
around Libby's chest, trying to restrain her and maybe even
use the force of their own body weight to pull
the belt tighter.
Speaker 9 (16:07):
There's a unique bruising pattern right in the middle of
her back, which to me appears to be consistent with
a bootprint or a shoeprint. How does that get there?
Doesn't get there from a suicidal hanging.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
This is a lot to take in and when I
first read it in the pdf Smock sent me, it
stopped me cold. If Smock is right, this being restrained
then strangled is a very violent and a very scary
way to die. And it means that though doctor Smock
agrees with the Jackson County Medical Examiner's opinion that Libby
(16:45):
ultimately died from asphyxia, he has a very different opinion
about how it happened.
Speaker 9 (16:51):
It was clear that the physical evidence, principally the marks
on Libby's neck, were not consistent with a suicidal hanging,
were consistent with a homicide.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Doctor Smock took his conclusion a step further.
Speaker 9 (17:05):
Libby's death was in fact a homicide stage to look
like a suicide. There is no doubt that Libby was
murdered and the scene was altered and things were staged.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
A staged murder is a big accusation. The implication is
that someone or someone's murdered Libby then methodically staged the
scene to send authorities in the wrong direction. Smock believes
this theory explains a lot of the evidence at the scene,
including the mark on the top of the bathroom door.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
There is evidence of green fibers on the top of
the door, so I do think at some point the
belt was over the top of the door if she
was hanging.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
I do not think she hung herself.
Speaker 9 (17:54):
I think it would take two individuals to place her
body up there. When you look at the location of
the tub and the door, I think it's physically impossible
for an individual to stand on the side of the tub,
put the belt over there, close the door, and then.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Jump off stage.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Crime scenes are pretty rare, but often have telltale signs
if you know what to look for. Smock wanted to
know if IPD had ever considered the possibility. Maybe he
thought it wasn't even on their radar, which is.
Speaker 9 (18:28):
Why I called the Independence Police Department. I talked to
Captain Mike Anka. I told Mike, what I would like
to do is to meet with you, your detectives, the
current medical examiner, and your local prosecutor, present the case
and why, in my opinion, based upon the physical evidence alone,
(18:49):
this is a homicide stage to look like a suicide.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
IPD Major Mike Anka told doctor Bill Smock that he
was eager to hear his analysis of Libby's case. Alca
said that by this point, two years after Libby's death,
IPD had exhausted everything they could do.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
He had reached out and I had a lot of
conversations with him. I set up the meeting with him
and the current medical examiner, and then we had the prosecutor.
We had Cindy in the room.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
I came alone. I came straight from work. Bill asked
me not to say too much, and so I sat quietly.
And it was just a big room, and it was
packed with detectives, police officers, Emmy, the prosecuting attorney, Michael Hunt.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
The meeting takes place on January thirteenth, twenty twenty, in
a third floor conference room of the Independence Police Department's
downtown headquarters. Doctor Pytak had left the department by then,
but the county's chief medical examiner, Marius Treu attends in
his place. Doctor Bell Smock arrives with Beth Weekly, a
(20:03):
forensic nurse who had also studied Libby's case. And it
starts off well enough.
Speaker 9 (20:08):
It was very cordial. Invited in as a law enforcement colleague.
I was there to present the case and answer any questions.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Smock brings the PowerPoint presentation he'd made of his findings,
which includes forensic analysis, crime scene studies, and photos of
a recreation he did of Libby's injuries.
Speaker 9 (20:31):
Was circumferential marks around the point those gramas created other
pattern injuries.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Beljuries did not come from a twisted belt.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
The prosecutor and the detectives in the room take it
all in, but according to Anka, the chief medical examiner
pushes back.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
Doctor Smock had his you know, his theories and his beliefs.
He would say the belt caused this and this, and
then the other doc said, yeah, the belt could have
caused this and this and this, but don't you agree
that this could have caused this? And this turned into
the two doctors kind of debating back and forth. Obviously,
(21:10):
both of them are trained, both of them are very knowledgeable,
but a lot of what they were talking about was
way beyond anybody else's in the room's skill set knowledge.
We didn't get anything out of it other than some
of the injuries could have been caused by homicide. Some
(21:32):
of the injuries could have been caused by suicide. There
was never a definitive answer as to what we were looking.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
At but Beth Weekly, the forensic nurse, remembers the situation
a little differently.
Speaker 10 (21:44):
I remember the medical examiner. I found him very defensive
and abrasive, and he's entitled to his opinion that I
remember him being extremely defensive about anything that contradicted. In
the end, it was frustrating to kind of see this resistance,
(22:06):
and frankly, I just think it boils down to no
one wants to admit they did something wrong.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Cindy told me she felt the same way.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
They seemed put off that anybody was questioning that they
didn't have the skill to investigate this properly.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
They were very.
Speaker 5 (22:26):
I would say, almost rude in laughing us off.
Speaker 9 (22:31):
At the end, it was clear I didn't convince them.
The medical examiner said, yeah, it may be, but he
said it wasn't my case. I wasn't there, and we
need to contact the pathologists who did the autopsy. So
I made that effort and no response.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Doctor Smock and his team were left with little hope
that Libby's case was going to get any more attention
from IPD, and without a new investigation, the prosecuting attorney
wasn't going to pursue charges.
Speaker 9 (23:05):
The prosecutor. Mister Hunt said, yeah, it may be a homicide,
but if I can't win it, I'm not going to
take the case.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I asked the Jackson County Prosecutor's office about this meeting,
but they declined to comment.
Speaker 10 (23:21):
We left and exchanged pleasantries and said we'll be in touch.
But you could sense that it was not anything that
they were pumped up about to like, yes, let's reopen
this up and get excited about to make a bad
situation better.
Speaker 9 (23:39):
I felt that that was the cowards way out, that
it was going to be an uphill battle to have independence.
Whether it's the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office or the police
department want or be willing to take a closer look
at the evidence that I presented to them. Libby's case
(24:01):
stands out in my mind and keeps me awake at night.
We see ineptitude, inadequate investigation, turning a blind eye to
the physical evidence on the part of the independence police department,
on the part of the Medical Examiner's office, on the
part of the Prosecutor's office. This case, of doing thousands
(24:25):
of cases in my career, stands out as the most
clear staged homicide and having been involved in thousands of
investigations in my career, this is the one that says
you did not do your job.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
You could have done it.
Speaker 9 (24:48):
We have a young woman who has been murdered and
those three agencies are failing to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
For Cindy. The meeting was another gut punch.
Speaker 5 (25:03):
In the lobby of the police department, there's a huge
glass thing that reads to serve and protect the citizens
of Independence and it, I.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
Mean, it just.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
Goes totally against what my experience was as a human
being living in Independence. I left there just totally discouraged.
And by the time I got home, Bill was calling
me and he said, well that didn't go as I planned,
you know, But he said, let me tell you this
so Cindy, we don't give up this in the end.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
And good on his word, Doctor Bill Smock wasn't taking
no for an answer. He was already pursuing another angle.
Speaker 7 (25:45):
After Bill got involved in it. Then he reached out
to me and to the rest of our team and said,
I believe we've got a stage crime scene.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Casey Gwinn is a former prosecutor who has spent his
career working on how to better serve domestic violence victims.
He's one of the founders of the domestic violence organization
Alliance for Hope International, where Bill Smock also consults.
Speaker 7 (26:11):
Bill Smock really took the forensic side of this, and
the rest of our team took the victimology, which is
really the history of a relationship and understanding the history
of the life of the victim and her relationship to
the potential suspect.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Gwinn was appalled at the lack of background investigation that
IPD had done in Libby's case.
Speaker 7 (26:33):
Why wouldn't you do a comprehensive investigation when you've got
a history of domestic violence and then you've got a
dead body. That should be a cardinal rule in every
law enforcement agency in America. That is homicide investigation, suspicious
death investigation.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
One oh one.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
You always want to know that entire history, and you
should want to know what his history is with other
women as well, And you would have to interview You'd
have to identify his prior girlfriends, you'd have to interviews friends,
You've have to introduce family members.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Since the mid nineteen nineties, Alliance for Hope has primarily
focused on preventing domestic violence homicides, But in twenty seventeen
the organization expanded into a different type of work, consulting
on cases involving domestic violence victims where the crime scene
was potentially staged. These cases come to them directly from victims'
(27:30):
families like Cindy, and also from prosecutors and police across
the country who are stumped on how to proceed. Alliance
for Hope believes there may be hundreds, maybe even more
than a thousand deaths of domestic violence victims in the
US each year that are going undetected, written off by
local law enforcement as unfortunate accidents or tragic suicides, when
(27:55):
in actuality, there is a perpetrator who has never been
held to account.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
We now call this the Hidden Homicides Project. Our focus
is on cases where there is a death after a
history of domestic violence. We now have about twenty active
cases at the present time. Every time we speak somewhere,
we are learning of more cases.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
They recently had their first major success a case in
Colorado where after doctor Smock got involved, a husband was
convicted of murdering his wife seven years after he tried
to make her death look like an accident to help
law enforcement understand how to spot such cases. Alliance for
Hope has come up with a checklist of ten red
(28:41):
flags commonalities among the stage murders that've uncovered. When Gwynn
compared his checklist to Libby's case, he was shocked.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Number one the victim dies prematurely or the victim dies unexpectedly.
Number two the scene appears to be a suicide.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
We'll go on to the bathroom, and I found her
conscious and it felt wrapped around her neck.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
Number three one partner wanted to end the relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
All she wanted to do was clean up and get
things right and get away from him.
Speaker 8 (29:16):
That was literally her goals on her table every time
we talked to her.
Speaker 7 (29:20):
Number four there was a prior history of domestic violence.
Speaker 5 (29:24):
That time he laid on her and she couldn't breathe.
I called nine one one.
Speaker 7 (29:27):
Number five the victim was found dead in a home
or in a place where they've been living or staying.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
They won the room so they can have some alone time.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Number six the victim is found by the current or
previous partner and found Number seven the prior history of
domestic violence includes an act of strangulation or suffocation when they.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Would get in fights and it would be really bad.
He would push her, hold her down, and choke her.
Speaker 7 (29:56):
Number eight the partner is the last person to see
the victim alive. I took a shower, remember.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Laying on the bed and passing out.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Number nine the partner has control of the crime scene
before the police arrived at eleven am this morning, and
then at that point you remained as sleep at the
entire time that you woke up this evening. Number ten,
the body has been moved or the scene or evidence
has been altered in some way, but he's.
Speaker 8 (30:24):
All the way clear on the right side of the toilet.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Steel just didn't make sense.
Speaker 7 (30:29):
We have every factor that we've identified in the Libby
Caswell case. That's enough for me to say, these red
flags are not just waving, they're screaming at you.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
If one is.
Speaker 7 (30:41):
A really poor investigation and ten is a perfect investigation,
I'd give him a point five.
Speaker 8 (30:54):
Initially I thought somebody killed Lobby, whether it was Devin,
whether somebody else. Obviously he was the most logical because
he was there. But you know, you can't just you
can't let those opinions influence you have to That's fine
to have them but you have to you have to
go by the facts and the evidence that you have.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Now that I'd heard doctor Smock and Casey Gwinn's criticisms
of IPD, I wanted to ask Major Mike Anka about
how short their investigation was and how they seemed to
make up their mind so quickly that it was suicide.
I mean, they told Cindy that night that Libby had
killed herself. Unca brought me back to the crime scene.
When IPD first got to the motel.
Speaker 8 (31:40):
We came out working this like a homicide. Hence why
we called a pio, why we called a captain, Why
we called two sergeants and two squads of detectives.
Speaker 6 (31:51):
So you're at the scene, there's a bunch of people
have arrived, right, There's like over a dozen people there.
They're processing the scene. We're still approaching it as a
potential homicide. What happens next, like does that change that
evening that it starts to move towards what had happened?
Speaker 8 (32:14):
Is so, I, along with several others, had responded back
to the station we were in in the process conducting interviews.
We were in our briefing room and I had gotten
a phone call from the sergeant on scene, and he
had told me that you're standing there with our crime
scene tech and the medical examiner was on scene, and
(32:37):
the medical examiner had said, everybody slowed down. This is
not a homicide. This is a suicide. So that's kind
of what slowed down and changed gears, is that the
medical examiner's on scene and they're saying, you guys are
blowing this out of a portion.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
But the medical examiner that Anca's referring to wasn't a
medical examiner at all. She wasn't a doctor. She was
a recent college grad in an entry level position at
the Jackson County Medical Examiner's office called investigator one. And
this comment she allegedly made wasn't noted anywhere in her
(33:14):
report that night, nor in any of ipd's notes.
Speaker 6 (33:18):
Let me ask you a question about that. The medical
examiner on seeing it was a medical examiner's investigator, right,
not medical examiner.
Speaker 8 (33:26):
Yeah, that's the way they operate here in the state.
Speaker 6 (33:29):
To send out an investigator. And when I look at
the contact sheet that shows who was on seeing that night,
I can see who that investigator was, and she it
was a woman who was twenty four years old every
stout there. It looks like she'd been working there for
about six months. And I asked her about this to
(33:51):
see what her recollections were, and she said she didn't
remember the scene, that she'd been to a bunch that
she said it was not her all to determine manner
of death, and that her role as an investigator was
just to gather the evidence and bring it back for
the autopsy. So she really pushed back and said it
(34:12):
wasn't up to her to guide the investigation in any direction.
Speaker 8 (34:18):
Right, No, And that's exactly true, and that's why we
finished what we were doing. But like I kind of
mentioned earlier, and I'm not I don't want I'm not
going to get into pinning us against the medical examiner
or nothing like that, because we we've got a good
working relationship.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Unca went on to explain that IPD didn't just immediately
stop their work after hearing the perspective of Investigator one,
but nonetheless it did change how they were thinking about
the case.
Speaker 8 (34:43):
I told the guys, we're going to go ahead and
we're going to finish everything we're doing. But medical examiners
saying that this is a suicide, this is not a homicide.
So that's that's what changed the year. That's what went
from you know, we were we were running a gun
and on it like a homicide, and we were inness
and shout Dad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
This question, what happened to change the focus of the
investigation from homicide to suicide. It's one that's been nagging
at me since I first started working on Libby's story.
I figured there had to be something more, something I
wasn't getting. I spoke to Major Anka for more than
an hour. He was unfailingly polite the entire time, listened
(35:24):
to my questions and answered each one. He seemed forthright,
and honestly, I got the impression he really did want
to help. But the answer I kept getting about what
changed that night was simply unsatisfying. It felt to me
like the police, without realizing what they were doing, might
have been primed to deem this case of suicide from
(35:47):
the beginning because of simple confirmation bias.
Speaker 7 (35:51):
The challenges for law enforcement really start right at the
scene where they first arrive.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Here's Casey Gwyn again.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
Face this framing of it as a suicide or as
an accident scene, and that confirmation bias then just begins
to expand moment by moment, day by day, and as
they pass on information to the next investigator or the
next medical person or the forensic medical examiner. It seems
(36:21):
that that confirmation bias that starts at the scene of
the crime contaminates the rest of the investigation in many
of these cases.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
In Libby's case, Devin called in her death as a suicide,
and then at the scene the medical examiner's investigator also
allegedly remarked that it looked like a suicide. Back at
the station, Devin and Nick both talked about Libby's suppose
suicidal ideations, and then IPD found the mark on top
(36:53):
of the motel bathroom door. Because of confirmation bias, it
might have been easy for IPD to latch onto evidence
that confirmed the suicide story and overlook evidence that pointed
the other way, and this kind of thinking could have
permeated the choices IPD made throughout their investigation, choices that
(37:14):
to outside experts like Casey Gwynn and doctor Smock now
seem questionable. For example, IPD chose not to explore Devon's
alibi that he had slept all day found to be
dead when he woke up around eight pm and then
went directly to his dad's house, an alibi that was
made ever more flimsy when Devon was caught on camera
(37:36):
seemingly asking his dad and stepmom to lie about his whereabouts.
IPD could have confirmed Devon's alibi by going back to
the sports stadium in to get the security footage from
the parking lot, but when I asked Anka about this,
he admitted the crime scene investigator made a mistake.
Speaker 8 (37:56):
He was instructed to go back and get that later
failed to do so. Never did. That's the one piece
that would have been wonderful to have that would put
my mind ease. Is Devon out walking around all day long,
in and out. He's saying he slept. If if we
had that video, we could tell he was out walking
around if any you know, obviously many things you know
(38:17):
to go back and do and do different. That video
is probably the number one. Yeah, Yeah, we were. We
wish we'd had that video.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
In the days and weeks after Libby's death, IPD could
have conducted more interviews, talk to those who knew Libby
and Devin best what Casey Quinn called victimology and suspectology
one oh one to their credit. IPD did eventually conduct
more interviews in twenty nineteen after Cindy's private investigator, Jim Murray,
(38:47):
brought his concerns to their attention.
Speaker 8 (38:49):
When Jim got involved and I started talking to Cindy,
the case that was opened back up. I gave it
a fresh of eyes with another detective and another sergeant.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
One of the things IPD did was follow up on
a tip that Devin confessed to Libby's murder to his
new girlfriend, but this was a dead end. The new
girlfriend wouldn't talk, and when IPD interviewed her mom and
her sister, each of them denied having heard anything. The
new detectives assigned to Libby's case also interviewed Devin again.
(39:21):
They asked him to go over the events of that night,
and Devin told them basically the same story.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Got out of the shower, Libby was going to take
a shower, and Libby for a talking to an argument
about how she didn't think that he was going to
be able to stop using.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Police press him on a few details like the broken
watch and the argument overheard by another motel guest, but
the most notable difference about this second round of questioning
is that they specifically ask him about domestic violence.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Is it possible that you messed up around the stake?
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Now, It's not possible because I know that that's not me.
I've never in my life where when you get real high,
I've never been that high that they're not you though
I've never it is, it's never.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's not that.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
It's not that I would never harm a woman, never, never,
no matter, no matter live. I got sad wounds in
my back from.
Speaker 8 (40:15):
Living hitting me with a steak knife.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Never did I put hands on her.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
If you're rest, I've never not want.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
My life and I would do anything in my power
bringing back to hit me with the steak knife ore time.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
You know what I'm saying to given what I have
uncovered about Devin's abusive behavior, domestic disturbance, what you've heard
in this podcast, what IPD would have had in their
own files, distance two subjects screaming and fighting or something
hit the wall. The extent of their questioning feels woefully
(40:48):
brief and under researched. They don't press him on any specifics,
and so that's it. The case is soon closed again
as a suicide. When I asked Uncle about this, he
said it was out of his hands. Even with the
work done by Jim Murray, the presentation by doctor Bill Smock,
(41:11):
and the additional investigation by IPD, they didn't have enough
evidence to convince the Prosecutor's office to move forward.
Speaker 8 (41:19):
I feel having kids myself, and I don't want to
get dramatic, but I'm broken hearted for Cindy. I can't
imagine what she's going through and what she's went through
and what she's continuing to go through. So the human
side of me is heart wrenching.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
UNCA has been open to the many outsiders, including me,
who have wanted to re examine Libby's case.
Speaker 8 (41:44):
So I'll just be candid and I don't have that arrogant,
condescending nature about me. I don't put myself on a
pedestal above anybody. I'm probably one of the last ones
in the room that bought that this was a suicide,
that this was an homicide. So for me, if you know,
if you can come up with something we haven't thought of,
by all means, let me have it.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Coming up on what happened to Libby Caswell, we learn
about Devin's life both before and after Libby. If anybody
knows Devin it's me because I'm the one that raised him,
and Devin reacts to the shadow of suspicion he's been
living under.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
Is ruining my life and people need to leave me alone.
And that's that's how I feel about it, because I'm
the one who lost someone dearly to me.
Speaker 8 (42:42):
I think from ring and.
Speaker 1 (42:48):
Keep you grown, don't.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
What Happened Toby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted by
me Melissa Jelson, with writing and story editing by Marisa
Brown and Lauren Hanson. Episodes are edited by Jeremy Thal
and Carl Catle. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch. For
iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvel,
(43:22):
with our supervising producer Carl Catle. Fact checking by Maya Shukri.
Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed
by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Woolf. Original music by Aaron
Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Our episodes are
mixed and mastered by Carl Catle. To find out more
(43:43):
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
Host
Melissa Jeltsen
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