Episode 330

Transcript

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

What happened? It's okay to

get it off your chest. I didn't do anything.
You're a liar. You danced around in her blood, but I went, Yay, me, look at me.

Here's to you, Satan. Here's to you.
My first sacrifice.

Life is hard,

but it is wonderful, isn't it?

And every day is a gift. So thank you for sharing yours with us today.

This is episode 330 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

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Tucked into the northern edge of St. Joseph, Missouri, Krug Park spans 163 acres of meticulously landscaped grounds, Renaissance-style architecture, and winding walking trails.
Sounds nice.

Known for its rose gardens, quiet lagoon, and even whimsical Italian castle, the park draws families and joggers alike, especially when it transforms into a glowing spectacle during the holidays.

But beneath its tranquil charm and seasonal cheer, Krug Park holds a dark memory, one that shattered its peaceful facade.

But I just stood there, you know, for two minutes trying to take everything in, and it's real. I didn't touch it.
I didn't look at it. Does she have any injuries or anything like that?

You know, I came up to the front, but it looked like a hole in the middle of the chest and then a cut by her neck. Like maybe her neck was blue or something.
Okay, can you describe the person to me?

A young lady completely like her clothes are all ripped off, and she was right next to her. Did you see any hair or eye color on the female?

The eyes are wide open, they're round. On the morning of October 16th, 2016, a young man was walking through Krug Park when he made a discovery that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He found the body of a teenage girl lying exposed on the jogging trail. She had been stabbed repeatedly, her throat slit.
This was no accident. It was a brutal and deliberate killing.

When investigators arrived, the details were as strange as they were disturbing. The girl was naked, her clothes tossed nearby in plain sight.
No attempt had been made to hide her or the clothing.

There were no signs of sexual assault and no form of identification was found. A search of the surrounding area turned up only a few broken and seemingly useless pieces of a cell phone.

A medical examiner later concluded that the murder had taken place recently, likely within 24 hours of the body being found.

It was ultimately determined that the teenage girl was killed the night before. The investigators' first priority was to identify the girl.

Until they had a name, she was referred to only as Krug Park Jane. Hoping for a lead, detectives examined her discarded clothing and found a logo on a t-shirt, one belonging to a nearby high school.

They visited the high school where the principal provided a tentative identification. A 17-year-old student named Caitlin Root.

Your book photos confirmed it. The victim was Caitlin.

Detectives then reached out to her family and continued the investigation by interviewing her father.

Now, is

Caitlin the only child you guys have together? Yes. Okay.

And

when was the last time you saw Caitlin?

It was

actually in person. It was

probably around the I think probably the 7th. Okay.

Caitlin's parents were divorced and she wasn't living with either of them at the time.

Which partly explained why no missing persons report had been filed before her body was found. And when was the last time that she stayed with you? It's been about a year, been about a year or two.

What's Caitlin's lifestyle like? Yeah, she's just

let's follow her friends. Okay, do whatever they do.

A few months before the murder, Caitlin's mother was preparing for an out-of-state job transfer.

At the time, Caitlin was living with her, but the prospect of leaving her friends behind didn't sit well. She was determined to stay in St.
Joseph.

Looking for another option, Caitlin reached out to her best friend's mom and grandmother to ask if she could move in with them. They didn't hesitate and welcomed Caitlin with open arms.

They had known Caitlin for years and already thought of her as family. How do you feel about Caitlin before this all happened?

What did you think about her? She's my daughter. She's not my biological, no.

But from the moment she walked in the door and met me, I was mama. That was that.

Caitlin was welcomed by a loving family who offered her care and support. But the home was considerably chaotic and very crowded.
Who Lol lives there with her? There's a list.

There's my buddy Pablo, and then Tabitha and her two daughters, and then grandma, grandpa, and then basically their nurses. Home care people? Pretty hard.

Take care of it. Okay.
Yeah. But they also are kind of living at the residence.
Oh, really? Yeah. There's actually two houses right next door to each other.
Okay.

Grandpa has one and then grandma has the other. And so where does Caitlin stay with? Who does Caitlin? She stays in Grandma's.

Despite the crowded living situation, everyone in the house was glad to have Caitlin move in. They genuinely liked her.
In fact, Caitlin was well liked by many.

Her cheerful personality and charm made people naturally gravitate towards her. Caitlin has

she's crazy, but it's a bit crazy. What do you mean by that? Like,

she's kind of got my personality. Which is how I'm describing bubbly and kind of.
Bubbly.

Which, and Caitlin's, she's fun to be around.

She cracks a lot. She's fun to be around?

Yeah.

Tragically, Caitlin's life was cut short at just 17 years old, and investigators were faced with the heartbreaking duty of informing her family and friends that the young woman found in Krug Park was Caitlin Root.

You know,

there's really no easy way to say this or do this. We do believe it is.

Caitlin, that was found up in Krug Park.

We're really

probably pretty certain it is.

We do have a couple pictures that if

you'd be willing to take a look up to say for sure,

you know, there's really no easy way to prepare yourself for this.

You know, when you're ready, if you just want to.

Yep, that's fair.

Are you relatively certain or you're 100%?

Yeah, that's fair. How can you be so sure?

Just tell about the picture.

I'm so very sorry for your loss.

We're going to do everything in our power, you know, to be able to answer all the questions for you. Naturally, everyone who knew and loved Caitlin were desperate for answers.

They wanted to know who had done this to her and why.

I just want to know who. So do we, and we're working on it.
I just can't figure out why.

Even if we figure out the who, why. Hopefully they'll be able to explain it.
Caitlin. Who would be that mad at her?

I don't know. For a time.
The case was a classic who'd done it.

Caitlin was an extremely well-liked teenager, making the brutal nature of her murder all the more perplexing. Investigators and loved ones alike were left asking the same haunting question:

Why would anyone want to kill her? Adding to the confusion, no one could explain why Caitlin had even been at Krug Park in the first place.

So, as far as you think, it's out of character for her to be walking in the park at? Yes. Okay.
Does she enjoy nature at all?

She's never been to the park at Krug Park ever. Okay.
I mean, it's how many known her

dunns? She hasn't been there since I've known her in about a year or two. I don't think she would go to the park unless it was a cohort.

In their efforts to unravel the mystery, investigators spoke with several of Caitlin's family members and everyone she'd been living with.

All were cleared as suspects, and none could shed light on why Caitlin had gone to Krug Park that night, the night she was killed.

With those leads exhausted, detectives shifted their focus to another group of people, Caitlin's boyfriends. She has dated several people.

She was a very promiscuous little girl. Oh, really? Yes.

And I'm not saying that to

disrespect her character, but she was. And the week before this all happened, she and I had gotten into an argument over it.
I said, Caitlin, you don't have to do that to be liked.

You think she was doing it to be liked?

I think she was was doing it to be liked, to

to fit in.

Caitlin had been through many short-lived relationships, but at the time of her murder, she wasn't dating anyone. So who's Caitlin dating?

At the time, she was dating nobody. Okay.

Was she seeing somebody before?

Not that I knew of. Like, I knew there was somebody named Kevin at the time.
Okay.

If I were to say to you, give me somebody that would want to hurt her, who would come to your mind?

I would have to say Kevin. Why would you say Kevin? From what she was telling me before that he has put hands on her.
During the initial round of interviews, one name surfaced repeatedly.

Kevin Whitmer. It quickly became clear that there had been some recent tension or drama between him and Caitlin.
I know she was getting threats

from

Kevin Allen Whitmer. She sent you about the guy who hit her.
Yeah. Who's this Whitmer? Apparently he hit her on Friday.
She sent him a message saying, hey, he hit me and stuff like that.

Well then other people started putting on what she put on Facebook public. Yeah, right? Publicly, then all these other people started commenting on it.
What was it about? Any idea what that was about?

No, I have no clue. Rumors started to swirl after a Facebook post and a string of comments beneath it suggested that Kevin Whitmer had recently gotten violent with Caitlin.

But before investigators had a chance to find Kevin, he contacted them and voluntarily came to the police station for an interview. How did you link her?

She is a friend of mine, old buddy's. How long have you met her? Actually knowing her for probably maybe three weeks.
When's the first time you guys started talking or hanging out or whatever?

Actually talking, it would have been

roughly three weeks ago. That's just you know conversation.
But when did you guys start hanging out hanging out dating or whatever

i think the first time we hung out was like a week and a half ago what did you guys do just drove around were you guys hanging out as friends or just your friends

were you eventually looking into engaging in a relationship with her

she wanted to but i she's 17 i'm 21.

that's my thing and she wanted to and i was like

I'm cool with friends, but that's as far as it's going to go. She tried to kiss me.
I mean, we kissed. That's about it.
That's the end of it.

21-year-old Kevin told investigators he had only known Caitlin for a short while and insisted he had no interest in a romantic relationship with her.

According to him, it was Caitlin who had wanted something more.

And then we finally got to hang out Thursday, and then she stayed the night with me. We guys watched movies.

We sitting there on Facebook and talking. Did she stay the night that night? Mm-hmm.
Okay. Anything going on that night? Did we just cuddle?

We just cuddled. That's it.
Now, here's the deal. We've already talked about this.
17 to 21. Right.
No, it's not. 17 was legal.
So I just want to make sure that you're... Telling me the truth.
Please.

The most...

And I did talk to her about having sex. And I just, and she told me that she's had sex with multiple people.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, it's not going to happen. So we just cuddled.

And when we got up the next morning, we laid in bed until probably, like I said, 12.30, 1 o'clock. And then I took her home and dropped her off.

Kevin explained he was put off by Caitlin's age and her alleged promiscuity. So he chose not to sleep with her or pursue a relationship.

He also claimed the last time he saw her was three days before the murder, when he dropped her off at home. The following day, he received a strange and threatening phone call.

A 689 number called me and was like, are you Kevin Whitmer? I was like, who is this? And he's like, don't worry about it. Just know that you're a woman beater.

And if you're gonna beat on a woman, you can beat on me. So, I called Caitlin and I was like, What the hell is going on? And she's like, You know, you hit me twice and gave me two bloody noses.

And I was like, The fuck ever, I don't put my hands on women. She's like, You know what you did, and fuck off, or whatever.
And she hung up on me.

So, I made a status after that and put it on Facebook. I have all the screenshots, all the comments up to that to last night whenever I went to sleep.

I woke up this morning, like 30 plus people commented on it, so I just went and deleted it. According to Kevin, Caitlin had told someone he hit her.
This was an allegation that he firmly denied.

With her claiming that he punched her in the face and gave her a bloody nose and all that,

why do you think that she would say that? What does she get out of it? Attention, I don't know. Honestly.

With this new information, investigators were faced with two possibilities, neither of which was easy to prove.

Either Caitlin, upset over being rejected, had falsely accused Kevin of violence, or Kevin was lying to cover up something far more sinister.

Without evidence, both scenarios seemed frustratingly out of reach. And this was just the beginning.

As the investigation unfolded, detectives encountered a growing list of unusual suspects, each one adding new layers of confusion.

More often than not, interviews ended with more questions than answers, and investigators were left asking the one question that continued to haunt them.

Who killed Caitlin Root?

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On October 16th, 2016, 17-year-old Caitlin Root was found murdered in Krug Park. She had been stabbed, her throat slit, her naked body left in plain sight.

With no witnesses and a few leads, investigators struggled to piece together why she was there, who she was with, and what went so horribly wrong.

Suspicions swirled around a young man named Kevin Whitmer, but nothing could be proven, and The deeper investigators dug, the stranger the case became.

During their conversations with Kevin, investigators learned about another young man who was reportedly eager and maybe even desperate to start a romantic relationship with Caitlin.

What exactly did she tell you about Adam?

That

this guy has the biggest crush on her, she doesn't want to be with him, and then he keeps messing her suicidal. He wants to cut his health, he wants to kill hisself, da-da-da-da.

Police were already familiar with the name Adam Brown. He was one of Caitlin's closest friends.
They'd known each other for years and were often seen together.

To those who knew them, the dynamic was clear. Adam wanted something more, but Caitlin had firmly placed him in the friend zone.
Adam

always had a thing for her, it just never worked out.

Yeah,

that's the way I would interpret it, judging by actions.

What do you mean by his actions? He was always trying to impress her in some way or shape or form.

She thought of him as a brother.

Nothing more

less. He wanted more, you think? He wanted more.
Do you think he was jealous of the attention the other young man got from her? If he was, he never let it show.

And technically, he's the last person we really know was seen with her, right? By his own admission. Right.

After gathering some background information on Adam's relationship with Caitlin, investigators brought him in for questioning.

Well, I believe it was like the 15th, Saturday. So I messaged Caitlin and I asked her if she wanted to hang out for a little bit, I can come by because

where she was staying was like right up the street from me.

She sat over on the other porch at Grandpa's and we were just talking and talking and talking, catching up.

And we were just sitting there and then she like jumps off the porch and was like, I gotta go meet Amanda. And I'm like, Amanda, who?

And then she said, Amanda Mix. And I'm like, I wouldn't do it.
Just stay home. It's late.
Don't you get hurt.

Adam freely admitted he was with Caitlin on the front porch of her home the night she was murdered, and that he was the last person to see her alive.

He claimed that during their final moments together, Caitlin abruptly decided to leave and meet up with someone else. Poor Adam.

Adam said he tried to warn her not to go, but she ignored his advice. She listened.
She went down to the corner on 15th and Olive. Got into a car that I couldn't even actually recognize.

It looked like a SUB-ish kind of looking thing.

And

that's the last I heard from her. Adam told investigators that Caitlin stepped off her front porch, walked down the road, and climbed into a mysterious black SUV.

If you've heard enough Sword and Scale, you know that this kind of story immediately raises some red flags.

Investigators wondered why someone would pick her up down the street instead of at her house. What were they trying to avoid or hide? Did this even really

Or was it just a whole story that Adam was making up just to cover his tracks? So you guys just all sitting there chatting on the front porch? So Wendy's taking the leave. Uh, she left about like

in between like 10:30 and 11.

So what how did she tell me a story again how she up and leaves? She was messaging Amanda on Facebook and uh

what's the relationship between her and Amanda? As far as I know, they're just friends. And that's Amanda Mix? Yeah.
Okay. Have they ever had any trouble with each other before?

No, but I've had my doubts about Amanda and I don't really trust her. What do you mean you've had your doubts about Amanda? Like, to me, she's just not

the right kind of people to really be hanging out with. Personal nitpicking things that me and hers, we just don't click.
Don't get along.

Yeah. So basically, yeah, they were texting on Facebook.
That's whenever she was like, I gotta hurry and get down here. She's about to pull up and everything.
I'm like,

you should not go. Did she say what she's gonna go do? Yeah, she said that they were gonna go sit at Hyde Park and they were gonna basically be hanging out and everything else.

Just basically doing girl stuff. Adam identified the person who picked up Caitlin as someone named Amanda Mix.

This was a name that caught investigators off guard. Until this moment, no one else had mentioned her in connection with this case.

So actually, when Caitlin left, you were the only one I surely to see her leave.

Pretty much, I was sitting on the porch with

him. Investigators were clearly wary of Adam.
There was something a little shady about him.

They questioned both his account of that night and how he characterized his relationship with Caitlin.

There was a brief moment where we thought me and her needed to eat together.

But

no, I'm sorry, I'm not going to date my best friend for 12 years. No.

So basically, I was just.

So how long did you guys date? Or how long did that not work out? We pretty much were together for about six hours total. Oh, really?

You guys ever have sex? No. Do you have any idea who might have done something to her?

I mean, I can only pretty much like start where basically the first person I knew about that she was going to be with, which would be Amanda. Like that's my, that's what I would

think about first. How the heck would I get in touch with Amanda?

That's a very good question because I haven't been able to get a hold of her all day. Despite their doubts about Adam's story, investigators decided to look into Amanda mix.

What they found was intriguing. Amanda, as it turns out, was once Caitlin's best friend.

You said that

Amanda Mix

and her were friends, but they had a falling out and only recently.

How do you know that's?

From everybody who's told me that she came over to that house on 15th to get Caitlin and Peck.

Before long, Amanda's name started coming up up repeatedly in the investigation. Some even claimed that the former best friend of Caitlin's had confessed to murder.

The next day, at the candlelighting, my brother came up to me crying. I mean, he was like shaking and crying.
And he's like, hey, dude, he's like, I'm glad I found you.

He's like, I'm scared shitless right now. He's like, she admitted it.
I was like, admitted, who? Who?

Come down and tell me what's going on. He sat there and told me, he's like, she admitted it.

I was like, who admitted it what he's like amanda she admitted that she her and several other people beat that shit out of that root girl did they you said earlier that they did it you referred to them as they had jumped her i don't know who they are okay he just said amanda and several other people eventually investigators brought amanda mix in for questioning but her situation was a bit different from the other potential suspects.

Unlike the rest, Amanda had had not come willingly. She was picked up on an unrelated, outstanding warrant.
Which, you know, is always a good sign. Do you know

a girl by the name of Keiper?

Yes. How do you know her?

Do I have to say all this? Hold on.

I'm just asking questions. I'm just curious.
How do you know her?

Well, she's your best friend. Oh, she's best friend? What? Tippy.
I don't really. I don't hang out with her anymore.
What happened? Between you two. Well, I mean that you guys aren't friends anymore.

Well, some are like we didn't like we just went our separate ways of this.

I don't have any friends from

Amanda told investigators there was no bad blood between her and Caitlin. They had simply grown apart over time, which is why they were no longer as close as they once were.

You never had a falling out with Caitlin or anything a while back while you guys... I mean, because I've been, I've got friends with that girl now for a long time.
Right, right, right.

But was there anything that ever happened between you two that you just kind of lost track of each other? There's just,

I've lost all friends because I don't like being around people. Are you really mad or pissed off at Caitlin for anything? No.
Okay.

Can I ask what this is about? I'm asking about Caitlin. Caitlin.
Okay, so why is she? I mean,

why?

Well, she's missing.

What? She's missing. Yeah.

When did she go missing? The other day. I'm not quite sure what day.

When's the last time you saw her? Oh, I've just seen her i mean i went to

a fuck i don't know what day it was but it was like some day last week a couple of days why are you so upset because i i love caitlin i really do then what happened i don't know anything i haven't the last time i've seen her was that when we have arrived amanda appeared genuinely unaware that caitlyn was dead She told investigators the last time she saw her was more than a week before the murder.

According to Amanda, she and her boyfriend were walking past Caitlin's house when they spotted her sitting on the front porch.

Amanda asked if anyone inside could give them a ride home, and Caitlin found someone willing to help. Since that day, Amanda had not seen or heard from Caitlin, or so she claimed.

Did you ever Facebook her or talked to her on Facebook? We have, yeah. Not recently, no.
Not recently? No. It hasn't been recently at all.

We don't really talk on Facebook. Somebody said that you you guys talked the other day on Facebook.
Is that not true? That's not true. I haven't talked to Caitlin on Facebook.

Or Messenger or something like that. Nothing like that.
I mean, Facebook accounts do you have? One, Amanda Pandit. I just feel like there's something you're just unquite telling me.

I mean, I promise I'm not keeping anything from it. Amanda also claimed she had not communicated with Caitlin through texts or social media in quite some time.

If true, that directly contradicted Adam Brown's statement. He had told police that Caitlin was messaging Amanda the very night she was killed.

I'll be honest, we talked with somebody who said that you were with her Saturday night.

Are you serious? Yeah.

Okay, I was with her Saturday night. It's no big deal.
I don't know why somebody would lie and say that you were with her on Saturday. Exactly.
You know what I'm saying?

Unless they don't want to get somebody else in trouble. I can get in serious trouble with whatever the fuck's going on.
What's going on? Whatever the situation is. I don't know what's going on.

That's what I'm saying.

So you mean telling me you didn't know that Caitlin's been missing? No, I didn't know shit until now.

So what would you say

by saying that somebody saw you leaving with her about 10 o'clock Saturday night?

I would laugh at you because it's not true.

10 o'clock that night, I was up in my room. Amanda insisted she was home the night of the murder, and she was adamant about it.
She even claimed she could back it up.

At the time, Amanda was living in a group home, and she told investigators that the house manager could confirm her whereabouts.

That's hilarious, dude. It's pissing me off.

But I try and catch a case with all this bullshit. Trying to catch what? A case with all this shit, because I didn't leave with her at 10 o'clock p.m.
You said you were going to try to.

I mean, if they had very, I don't know, y'all, this is bullshit. That's why I would like you to call her now.
So...

I'll see if I can get somebody to call Tina. Yeah, exactly.

She'll even tell you I was there. Saturday night?

Amanda urged investigators to contact her house manager to confirm her alibi, and she grew increasingly impatient as the questioning continued. I have not talked to Caitlin.

I've tired of repeating myself.

No, I want to know the whole story. That's what I want to know.
That's exactly what I want to know because I'm telling you guys what the fuck I did Saturday night, 10 o'clock p.m.

Well, I'm telling you that people are telling me you're the last person that... Oh, that's hilarious.
Call Tina, please. 8167.
We're working on that. Win.

Because I want to hear her tell y'all you know this sounds like one of the mysteries fucking TV shows I know I agree it does doesn't it so just call Tina please get this shit figured out like this is ridiculous if y'all just call y'all know the fucking truth

here's the thing I'm not totally gonna tell y'all call Tina

it's one of those things that it's one of those things where you can get that fucking proof right now It doesn't not make sense.

You can go get my boyfriend and he'll tell you the same exact shit.

But why are you yelling? Because

you think I'm really doing something to Caitlin? I don't really fucking talk to Caitlin anymore. Who said anything happened to Caitlin? Okay, she's missing.
Well.

So something obviously had to happen.

Maybe she's in Kansas City.

Totally. What? Caitlin would not go to Kansas City.
How do you know that? You haven't been friends with her for a while. So.

But I know. Okay, just because.
You know what? I'm going to say, but I don't want to. Sit down.
No, I'm going to go, man. No, I'm done.
Sit down for me. I don't want to talk.
I'm done talking.

I'm going to be silent. I just want to go.
That's all. Amanda took a firm stance with investigators and ultimately chose to remain silent, which is, of course, her right.

When they followed up with her house manager, the story she gave them seemed to check out. Amanda had signed in early that evening, but the alibi wasn't airtight.

Nothing would have prevented her from slipping out unnoticed later that night. Once again, investigators were faced with with two conflicting stories.

Either Adam Brown had lied about Caitlin messaging and leaving with Amanda Mix,

or Amanda was lying about her whereabouts on the night of the murder. Now's a good time to test your sleuthing abilities, and I ask you, who do you think was responsible out of these two?

I wonder if you'll get it right, because What came next was a revelation that no one expected. Neither of them had lied.
Yeah, how about that?

The person who had actually misled the investigators and did not tell the truth was the most unlikely person

of all.

The victim,

Caitlin

Root.

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You will.

Keishana wanted to pay homage to her son. I lost my son to to cancer when he was just 14 years old, and I came to United Healthcare to make a difference.
She instantly made an impact on others.

Anything that I could do to honor him, I understood. I was once that person on the other side.
Through her work, she's been able to turn her pain into purpose. I took it from my boy.

He gave me so much. Hear more stories like Kishana's at uhc.com.

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In October of 2016, homicide investigators in St. Joseph, Missouri were deep into the investigation of 17-year-old Caitlin Roots' brutal murder.

Caitlin's body had been found in Krug Park, with a few clues to follow.

Investigators chased down leads, questioned family and friends, and attempted to unravel conflicting stories, but nothing was adding up.

Then came a stunning theory: Perhaps the person misleading them wasn't a suspect. Perhaps it was Caitlin herself.

You see, Caitlin's close friend Adam Brown told investigators that the last time he saw her, she'd said that she was going to meet up with Amanda Mix.

Maybe she told him the truth, or maybe it was a lie. It was entirely possible that Caitlin had plans with someone else that night and just didn't want anyone to know.

With answers still elusive, investigators returned to the crime scene and expanded their search of the area. This decision led to a crucial breakthrough.

While the initial sweep had uncovered only broken fragments of Caitlin's cell phone, the extended search turned up even more pieces.

Forensic specialists managed to reassemble the phone, giving detectives access to Caitlin's texts and social media. This

was a game changer. The recovered messages revealed that Caitlin had been planning to meet someone named Amanda that night, but not Amanda Mix.

It was another teenager who had gone to high school with Caitlin. Her name was Amanda Bennett.
These messages revealed that Amanda Bennett had invited Caitlin to hang out with her and her boyfriend.

and had even told her not to tell anyone who she was with.

Armed with this discovery, investigators quietly surveilled Amanda Bennett and her boyfriend for several days before making their move. Both were arrested.

Amanda's mom was also brought in for questioning.

So, Amanda and Sebastian both live with you? Correct. Okay, and how long has he been living with you? He's been there at least over a year.
Where's Amanda working at right now?

She worked at Northbout Pizza Hut with me. And how about Sebastian? Where's she working at?

The McDonald's down on the interstate. What do they do for fun? Besides at the house? What kind of things do they do? I don't really do much, that's what I'm saying.

Like I said, I have internet and Netflix and all that, so they pretty much stay in their room and watch TV or they play video games.

Ever go anywhere and hanging out? Not really, no. Anyone ever come to the house and hang out?

And that's been a lot of Amanda's problems. She don't have very many friends.
So she doesn't have any friends. And she'll tell you that.

She doesn't hang out with anybody investigators learned that 17 year old amanda bennett and her 18 year old boyfriend sebastian dowell were living with amanda's mom the couple was reclusive with no known friends or social connections what they did have was a newborn son who was just a few months old the soft cooing heard in the background of this interview belongs to their baby.

I don't keep track of Sebastian, honestly, because I can care less about Sebastian. What's the deal with that?

Well, he's lazy, pretty much. There's always an excuse why he can't get up and go to work, or, you know, he doesn't want to do any tours around the house.

He's just not a good dad.

She's usually up with the baby all night. She's been trying to go to school and then working, and he does nothing.
And it makes me mad. And I was to the point I've been talking to my son.
I said,

you know, she's been talking about moving out with him. And if that's the case,

we'll get an attorney and get custody of Seiler because he's not taking care of himself on the baby, from what it sounds.

And he also has a two-year-old little girl,

and I know that he doesn't ever see her

nor paid child support, doesn't do anything for her.

Amanda's mom shared some background with investigators about her daughter and Sebastian.

She confirmed that both were high school dropouts, with Amanda working at Pizza Hut and Sebastian at McDonald's. What a pair.

She also admitted she wasn't fond of Sebastian, describing him as a lazy, inattentive, and irresponsible father.

When asked about the night Caitlin Root was murdered, she recalled that Amanda and Sebastian had gone out, supposedly to see a movie. They returned home very late.

And you work together, so you're together all day until 9 p.m. So you, so when you come home, 9 p.m., does she ride home with you? Yes.
Okay, so. We came home.
Sebastian was home home with the baby.

And I'm going to look on my phone because I want to say that that was the night they went to the movies. As far as I know, they went to the movies, is what I was told.
Okay. And they take your car.

Yes. And what time do you think they text you to tell you that they're going over to Jeremy's? Well, they didn't actually text me to tell me that's where they were going.

I texted her and asked her, I said, where are you guys at? Because I don't think the movie lasts, no, three hours. So it was like 10,

I'm on 12:30.

She said, oh, we came over to Jeremy's house.

After their conversation with Amanda's mom, investigators sat down with Amanda herself, who appeared remarkably unfazed by the situation, showing little concern or emotion as the questioning started.

You're 17? Mm-hmm. Okay.
What was

today? Happy birthday. Yeah, what was the last grade level in school you completed? I finished sophomore year.
Okay. And you working anywhere? Pizza Hut, Northville.
Any idea why you're here?

Mm-hmm.

I'll be honest, I find it hard to believe. You don't know why you're here.
We have a lot of information.

We have a lot of evidence. And I know you know why you're here.
You know, I don't believe

that

your

involvement is

done on your own.

I know that, you know, somebody else was there.

We don't think you're a bad person, not at all. When do I ask for a lawyer?

You can ask for a lawyer any time you want, if that's what you want to do.

You guys think I did something, so I hate that. What do you think we think you did?

I don't know.

Then I would think you would want to find out.

Well, I thought you were supposed to tell me what do you think I did.

Amanda claimed she had no idea what was going on, and it quickly became clear that a confession wasn't coming any time soon.

Shifting tactics, investigators eased into a gentler line of questioning, focusing instead on on her relationship with Sebastian. Does he stay anywhere else now, even occasionally?

Every night at you?

A thumb on that, right? Make sure he's where he's supposed to be. Yep.

He's pretty. You got to keep a lock on that.
He's pretty? Yeah, you got to keep a lock on that. Do you guys ever go out separate? Do you guys ever do separate things?

Like, you go, he goes. Where he goes, you go, huh? Except for work, of course.
Yeah.

I'm usually at his work, too.

Really? Except for when I work.

Who do you guys run around with? I mean, who do you guys do stuff with other than when you guys go to something? Do you guys have friends? Are they friends? No.

You guys don't run around with anybody. You don't hang out with anybody.
It's just you two. We're always home.
Love, exciting, and new. No, we just don't have friends.

We don't have any friends. Sebastian didn't have any friends? No, I don't.
I don't let him.

Amanda was pretty open about her relationship with Sebastian and admitted to being a very controlling presence in his life let's put it that way I shaved his legs what he lets you shave his legs like with a razor shave like all the way up top all the way down why is that I wanted to get rid of his masculinity

okay now you're gonna have to explain that one to me you got me scratched because he thinks he's all the

well you do too apparently investigators also questioned Amanda about her religious beliefs, particularly her views on the devil.

Their curiosity stemmed from a search of her bedroom, where they had found books related to Satanism.

In her basement, they also found a journal penned by Amanda that was full of bizarre writings about demons, sacrificing souls, and controlling fire with one's mind. How about that?

So what do you think about the devil? Do you think the devil exists?

I don't know. Have you ever looked into other forms of religion? Have you ever considered other forms of religion?

Experimented with any of that or any satanic stuff or anything like that? No. So you have faith in God,

but you've questioned it. Well, I've grown up believing that like ever since I was born, I was in a church environment.

After gaining more insight into Amanda, her relationship with Sebastian and her beliefs, investigators turned to a crucial question.

Where were she and Sebastian on the night of October 15th, 2016?

The night Caitlin Root was murdered.

We were gonna go to the movies because I got

two to like free tickets. You know how they had those free tickets?

But we watched The Girl in the Train. We were gonna go see that.
Is that good? No.

Most scary movies nowadays aren't good. They stayed for the whole movie.

How'd the movie end?

Weird.

Just weird. It was all like a mystery about like murder.
Who did the murder?

I wasn't paying attention. You weren't paying attention.

It was a boring movie. Yeah, what did you do after that? And then

we went to Sebastian's dad's house. Amanda told investigators that she and Sebastian had gone to see the movie, The Girl on the Train, that night.

But when asked about the plot, she couldn't recall a single detail. Pro tip.
If you're going to use a movie as an alibi, make sure you've actually seen it.

Also, that movie was fantastic, so if you say it was boring, then you're either lying or you're extremely unintelligent. Or most likely both.

Amanda went on to say that after the movie, the two of them headed to Sebastian's dad's house and spent a few hours there. But Amanda didn't know that investigators had already done their homework.

You see, this is the kind of person that doesn't do homework, so she assumes no one else does either.

The police had reviewed surveillance footage from the theater, and neither Amanda nor Sebastian appeared in any of it.

Her story was obviously a lie.

Why would you tell me that you were at the movies when you weren't at the movies? We were at the movies.

At the late movie, which started at 10.10 of Girl on the Train.

Then why, I mean, are you guys like

invisible or something? Or, I mean, why won't you be on the video? You're not there. I don't know.

Well, honey, you got to be there. If you were there, you had to go up to the window and get, exchange your passes for tickets, right? Mm-hmm.

Neither one of you are on video getting the tickets.

They've got the videos on thumb drives. They're going to bring them back here, you know, and

you can't be there if you're not there. You know, cameras don't lie.
So tell me why you wouldn't be on

video.

I don't know. I would suggest it's because you weren't there.
And I would suggest you were somewhere else and you don't want to tell me about that. We were at the movies.

What would you say if we had Sebastian on video somewhere else? I'd say you were a liar. Are you afraid to tell us the truth? No, I went to the movie.

Other than the movie, are you afraid to tell us the truth? Are you afraid us to know everything

for us to know everything that happened Saturday night? I told told you everything that happened.

In addition to the theater footage, police had surveillance from another location that placed Sebastian across town, alarmingly close to Krug Park.

A street camera captured him sitting in the passenger seat of Amanda's mom's car. Presumably, Amanda was behind the wheel.
So, how do we explain that?

How do we explain your car with Sebastian in it being at a completely different location The time the movie was going on.

Are you scared right now?

I don't know.

I would be.

Why?

Because you're not telling us the truth, huh? I would be looking for a chance to help yourself and stop lying.

I mean, if you think I did something wrong, either way, I'm going down.

Well, yeah, but if you admit them. No, that's not true.
If you didn't do it, you wouldn't have anything to worry about. You wouldn't need to be scared right now.
I'm not scared. But you should be.

Because I I know you did it and I know

you think I did it no I know

it's not it's not a matter don't get upset I'm talking to you I mean person to person being real I told you I would not lie to you I will not tell you that I can prove something that I can't prove you know this is not our first rodeo we've had a ten

seven homicides in St. Joe within the past year yeah at least that you found a body for right there's probably more but is it well who said anything about a homicide Google.

But I mean,

we didn't say anything about a homicide.

Interestingly, the first mention of murder during this interview didn't come from investigators. It came from Amanda herself.

Oops.

I guess you're not the criminal mastermind you thought you were. Ain't that right, Amanda? Who says this is a homicide we're talking about? Is there something we need to know about a homicide?

Well, you're investigating the homicide. We're investigating hundreds of crimes.

Well, that's the only one in the news, so I'm assuming.

So, what do you know about the homicide then, since you're talking about it? What do you know about it? The stuff in the news.

For a while, Amanda stuck to her flimsy story about going to the movies on the night of the murder, even though it had already been disproven.

So, investigators decided to leave her alone in the interrogation room and shift their focus to her boyfriend, 18-year-old Sebastian Dowell. Saturday, did you work last Saturday, a week ago today?

No, we just stayed home. Stay at home the whole time? Yeah, we probably do.
It's Saturday night!

Don't do nothing, no date night, no.

No. We just watch TV and watch Netflix.
For investigators, it was clear that Amanda and Sebastian hadn't coordinated their story very well.

Amanda said they were going to a movie on the night of the murder while Sebastian insisted they had stayed home the entire time.

So who's the domineering one in the house?

Probably her.

There's nothing wrong with the bed that it's the same way. Yeah, we're a half.
We're the same way.

She's a jealous woman.

She does get that way, yes. Yeah.
Like,

May Julie? May Julie? Tell me about that. Well, she'll slap me if she if she thinks I did something wrong.

She'll yell and

So what's the most violent thing she's ever done over jealousy?

Um

she uh

fractured my ribs. I think she tried to stab me at one point.
Wow. How did she break your ribs? Uh she kicked me and punched me.

And tried to stab you. Yeah.

That's scary, you know?

Yeah, but she's always been controlling. I have to ask if I can leave the house.
I have to

ask her anything if I want to do anything.

Sebastian confirmed the controlling nature of his relationship with Amanda and added a disturbing layer.

He claimed Amanda's dominance over him was enforced through violence, alleging that she had once fractured his ribs and even tried to stab him.

While the rest of the interview offered deeper insight into their toxic and abusive relationship, much of the audio was difficult to make out, with Sebastian muttering barely above a whisper, like a little kid.

Still, he revealed that both he and Amanda were deeply involved in Satanism and considered themselves devoted followers. As for Caitlin Root, Sebastian claimed he barely knew her.

According to him, the only time they met was on the day his son was born when Caitlin visited Amanda in the hospital, And get this,

started flirting with him. Right there, right in the hospital, right in front of Amanda.

Well,

I was in front of Amanda. Yeah.

Again, I wasn't there, but was she being disrespectful? Like,

in her face, like, throwing it in Amanda's face that she's...

It was kind of disrespectful, I'd say. I guess what I'm kind of missing here is

she, they're not really friends,

but she shows up to the hospital and starts hitting on the father of the child. I mean, why? I mean, what's, I have no idea.

According to Sebastian, during the hospital visit, Caitlin implied that Amanda's newborn son wasn't his, but rather a child of Amanda's ex-boyfriend. This suggestion infuriated Amanda.

Ho's mad, as they say.

Finally, after two hours of questioning, Sebastian requested a lawyer, bringing the interview to a close.

Investigators then shifted their attention back to Amanda, returning to the interrogation room where she'd been waiting.

I don't know. Did she do?

Well, you know.

You've seen.

You saw, too, with your own eyes.

And at your hands.

Yes, she did, honey.

Your phone tells a different story, your messages.

And if you want to sit and continue to lie and say, no, no no and when you go to court and we prove this this this this this and this that we have and you sit there and say i don't know anything show no remorse say you didn't do it and the reason cylinder's gone i i mean we know why it's a threat no it's not a threat

no it's not you said you weren't gonna do that no if you get convicted honey I'm going away forever. And you don't do anything to help yourself to explain why.
Silas can be raised by somebody else.

To explain why this happened. Don't you think that everybody deserves to at least know why?

Sure.

Then tell us why.

Why what?

Why you guys killed this girl. We didn't kill anyone.
That's not true, and you know it. This time, investigators adopted a much tougher approach with Amanda.

And it quickly revealed the very cold and callous side of her personality. There's only two people that were there, you and Sebastian.
So you're telling me he did it all? He didn't do anything.

Then who did then?

A bear.

You know what I'm beginning to think? What I'm beginning to think is you are a very cold,

hard person. That you can sit here and have no emotion

and make funnies about all this stuff to say maybe she was killed by a bear.

Well, I don't know what she was killed by. Well, you know exactly what she was killed by.

But yet you

sit here and make light of it.

Like it's

no big deal taking a human life.

It's you don't physically scare me, but it's just spooky

that you

just have no emotion

about it.

Possibly recognizing that they were dealing with someone who was deeply detached and sociopathic, investigators abandoned any pretense of gentleness and doubled down on their hardline approach with Amanda.

You killed her. I don't know, Caitlin.

You're a liar.

You like the fact that you killed Caitlin Roode and you can't wait to do it again. You're a killer.
And you like that.

You don't care.

Less than a week ago, you killed somebody.

And you don't care. You probably went home and had a great time.
Oh, wasn't that fun? Wasn't that great. I can't wait to do it again.
Maybe we should do it to Siler. You're sick.

You're sick. I've never killed anyone.
Neither have I. You're a liar.
You're a liar. You watched her die.

And you got off on it. What was it like?

Were you looking in her eyes the whole time as she's dying?

Did she say anything to you? Do you replay it when you close your eyes at night? You and Sebastian are killers and you like it. You like to be you want to be known as the people who kill people.

You're getting off on the fact that you know that you guys killed somebody together and you'll kill again because you're killers.

You probably rubbed her blood all over your body and probably, I don't know, probably had some weird sex. I danced in a circle, yeah, shouting.
You did?

Is that what you're saying? What happened? It's okay to. It's okay.
Get it off your chest. I didn't do anything.
You're a liar. You danced around in her blood and probably went, Yay, me, look at me.

Here's to you, Satan.

Here's to you. My first sacrifice, or is it my first sacrifice to you? Despite their best efforts, investigators did not get a confession from Amanda, and eventually they had to call it quits.

Amanda remained in the interrogation room waiting to be booked for murder.

While she sat there, a different officer kept her company, and the two engaged in a surprisingly casual conversation about favorite TV shows and other everyday topics.

During the course of that seemingly harmless chat, Amanda revealed some unsettling things about herself.

You ever do any of like the ghost hunting kind of stuff before? I'm interested in that.

I like to do.

You're gonna think I'm crazy, but I've been to hell before, so once you cross over

that border, you can see

everything from a spiritual point of view. Well if they want you to see them.

Hell is way more complex than what everyone says. Like there's no fire for one.
It's not hot. It's normal and there's like it's kind of like an office building.

There's different sections and each demon has like a secretary who goes out and collects like debts and souls from people. It's like corridors like that and you get to

decorate.

You get to like design it however you want like the secretary for almadir has a room exactly like this it's great that's it as amanda continued to ramble on about her bizarre and quite frankly retarded beliefs something unexpected was unfolding in the other interrogation room sebastian had waived his right to an attorney and asked to speak with investigators again After a week-long investigation and countless hours of interviews with friends, family, and suspects, the moment they had been waiting for had arrived.

One of Caitlin's killers was finally ready to confess.

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On October 2016, teenagers Amanda Bennett and Sebastian Dowell were arrested for the brutal murder of Caitlin Root.

At first, both denied any involvement, but investigators knew it was only a matter of time before one of them cracked. They were right.

During a second interview, Sebastian finally began to open up, revealing not just pieces of the truth, but also the disturbing details about his beliefs about himself.

But we have a patriotic gods. My religion, mine is Hades, the Lord of the Underworld.

In case Sebastian's low, muttered voice is hard to make out, he told investigators that he considered himself a sociopath and claimed to worship Hades, the Greek god of the underworld.

I have my own religion, he says matter-of-factly. To be clear, Amanda and Sebastian weren't dark mystics or vessels of some supernatural evil.
They didn't have their own religion, as he says.

What they did have was way too much time on their hands and a lack of cognitive skills. They were delusional and deeply out of touch with reality.

They fancied themselves connected to something sinister. But that's what losers do.

They spend their lazy asses online building up delusions of grandeur to feed and protect their own egos from coming to the realization that they are utterly useless trash.

leeching off the goodwill of others and contributing absolutely nothing to society other than misery and death.

In truth, they were nothing but just a couple of high school dropouts working part-time fast food jobs, living in a cluttered bedroom in Amanda's mom's house, barely managing to care for their newborn son.

And they were responsible for the murder of an innocent 17-year-old girl. That's it.
That's the end result of too much coddling, too much sheltering, and no actual parenting.

Where the fuck is the father? Where are the rules? Where's the goddamn discipline?

If you're an adult with a child still living at your mom's house because that's all you can afford, Jesus Christ, where's the fucking shame?

As this interview continued, Sebastian revealed another bizarre detail about himself.

He claimed to have a second personality of all names, Drake, who would sometimes take control of Sebastian's body, he said. So here we go with all that bullshit.

And when you're Drake, do you feel,

I mean, you can you

like, does Sebastian look back on a third-person view and see Drake talking and doing?

Or is it times? Sometimes it's just like,

I blink my eyes and it's over. And then sometimes it's just

watching what's happening.

After setting the stage with claims of memory loss and blame for his alter ego, Sebastian started recounting his version of what happened on the night Caitlin Root was murdered.

Became obsessed with she became obsessed with doing a sacrifice.

As expected, Sebastian claimed he couldn't remember much about the murder because Drake had taken over his body.

Still, he told investigators that Amanda had struck Caitlin over the head, and once she was unconscious, the two of them cut off her clothes and carried out what he described as a satanic human sacrifice, stabbing her multiple times and slitting her throat.

Sebastian emphasized that Amanda was the mastermind behind all of this. According to him, she'd planned the entire thing and taken the lead.

While he didn't deny participating, he painted himself as a passive accomplice. Despite the outlandish claims of memory loss and a second personality, investigators had what they needed: a confession.

And it wouldn't be the only one.

Just two days later, Amanda requested another meeting with investigators. I was

just messaging people to see if anyone wanted to hang out, because I never do. I messaged a girl named Haley Mooney,

another girl named Haley, and a girl named Allie, and asked, and I was like, hi, how are you guys? So are you the same age as all these girls? Yeah, they're they're in my grade. Okay.

During her next interview, Amanda revealed that on the night of the murder, she had sent Facebook messages to several teenage girls asking if they wanted to hang out with her and her boyfriend, Sebastian.

The first to respond was Caitlin Root.

Then Caitlin talked to me. I was like, Oh, you want to hang out or something? She said, Yeah, that'd be cool.
I was like,

Do you smoke? Because I know she hangs around that crowd that does she hangs out with smoke weed you mean yeah I told Sebastian that we were gonna go to the park and he was like okay and then we left

and then

we like I asked her where she was at and then she told me and I was like well can you just walk up to like the corner of the street so I didn't have to look for your house Amanda and Sebastian drove to Caitlin's neighborhood.

As they got closer, Amanda told Caitlin to meet them at the nearby street corner.

After picking them up, the two drove around for a bit before ending up at Krug Park, where they walked the wooded trails and paused for a while to smoke some weed.

Then Sebastian, he sat down next to me,

and he said they wanted her for a sacrifice. They wanted her specifically, and that she fit the criteria and that they wanted her.

I told him that we were having fun with her and that she was becoming my friend and

that

I didn't want it to be her.

And he said that it had to be her because

they wanted her.

So

we kept walking and then Sebastian, like she was bleeding, so Sebastian pulled me aside and said and handed me a stick and said, hit her, you need to hit her.

And I told him I didn't want to and he said hit her now.

So I hit her a stick. And then after I hit her, Sebastian jumped off top of her and started choking her.
So she went to the ground after you hit you? No, he ran past me.

Sebastian ran past me and knocked me to the ground.

Started choking her. How was he choking her?

Um,

she was laying right here, and he had a hole of her like that. and was choking her

and was trying to say, help me, please stop. I can't breathe.
And

he said, can you help me? And

I just stood there.

I didn't know what to do.

And then he took a syringe out of his pocket. What? A syringe.
And he stabbed her in the neck with it. And I asked him what that was, and he said it was supposed to make her go to sleep.

So she wouldn't feel anything.

So then he cut her clothes off and pulled her pants off. Hold on.
I thought that once you'd been to hell, nothing scared you anymore. Why are you crying, Amanda? What happened?

As you can tell, Amanda's version of events differed quite a bit from Sebastian's.

She was just a reluctant bystander and an unwilling participant in a satanic ritual that Sebastian alone wanted to carry out.

It was all him. It wasn't her.
She was just an innocent little girl. Female accountability.
Am I right?

And then he handed me a knife and said to stab her.

And I told him I couldn't do it.

I told him that I couldn't do it. And he said that I had to.

And I told him that I couldn't. And he said, we have to do it now.
So I took it back

and he stabbed her in the chest.

And then... And then I covered my eyes and ears and I turned around.

When I turned around, she was standing up.

I knew he had stabbed her, though, but she was standing up and starting to

walk away.

And

he looked surprised, so I don't think it was supposed to happen. He knocked her back down and jumped on top of her, like on top of her with his legs.
It's like he was choking her again.

And after a while, he said that she didn't have pulse anymore.

He looked at me and he said he was proud of me.

He said he was proud of me for being there.

Amanda claimed that after Caitlin was killed, Sebastian smashed her phone and scattered the pieces throughout the park. He then coached Amanda on what to say if they were ever questioned by police.

He took the zip card out and he broke it in half and put it somewhere. He told me to look at it and he told me that if we were caught

to tell the police that we were at the movies.

Amanda also insisted that any evidence linking her to Satanism or human sacrifice was entirely Sebastian's doing.

It's always the man who's to blame, isn't it? She claimed he had forced his beliefs onto her and that she had simply gone along without taking any of his beliefs seriously.

I know you guys found the books as you were talking to me about

satanic rituals. And the stuff that was written in the books is the stuff that he told me.

That was handwritten stuff?

Yeah, in the black book.

Who wrote it?

I wrote what he told me. Amanda explained that Sebastian had mentioned performing a human sacrifice more than once, but she never actually believed he would do it.

How many times have we heard that shit before?

She claimed that when they picked up Caitlin that night, she had no idea what Sebastian intended to do. There's a part of you thinking, hey, yeah, this is going going to happen, right?

I thought he was kidding. I didn't think he was really going to do it.
That's why I thought when we got to the inn that we were just going to take her home. I thought he was joking.

I thought it was just all about.

Why weren't you telling him I've got somebody that you can sacrifice? I found her. I found the one we can sacrifice.

Because he said that he needed to do it, and I didn't want him to kill a random person if he was going to do it.

Amanda's story was riddled with inconsistencies, and after listening to her for several minutes investigators started pushing back with pointed questions and rebuttals.

It was clear she was still lying and trying to protect herself by shifting all of the blame onto Sebastian.

I mean when we talked the other day you talked about how

you control him, how you're the domineering person in the relationship, how you keep him locked down because he's pretty. You lock that shit down.
You say, well, you told me.

Well, I don't let him talk to anybody like his phone isn't on and i read all of his messages because he's had jealous

yeah

i mean you basically you made it pretty clear that you were the

boss in the family

about about some things but then now we're at where he's controlling you and well another thing is in all honesty and i'm just being straight with you i mean

you showed no remorse no emotion emotion whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I laughed a couple times when we were talking about the situation.
And now

there's this complete mood and demeanor change in these crocodile tears stuff. I mean,

I mean, with your demeanor the other day, I have a hard time believing that all of a sudden now,

complete opposite. You were just as cold and soulless as you can possibly be.
Amanda's interviews with investigators painted a picture of two entirely different people.

In the first, she came off as a cold, arrogant, and detached sociopath. But after two days in a jail cell, she returned as a tearful, self-proclaimed victim.
You know, female privilege.

So why, if this is a story we would believe now,

that he's this evil person and you're just kind of a,

I guess you're kind of saying you're a victim in this. Why didn't you tell us all this in or not?

Because he... Why did you act so cold? Why did you not care? Why did you laugh? Why did you tell us to prove it?

How could you possibly have no... With the emotions you're having today,

how could you possibly sat there

as I'm describing this homicide? It didn't affect me because it wasn't true. I mean, I knew what he was telling me wasn't true.
That's why I'm not sure. How did that affect you?

you said you went and threw up.

You said you had to cover your eyes

and your ears so you wouldn't hear her scream and you wouldn't see it.

But you had no emotion in the end of the day. Not a single tear, not even a sad face.
Well, because... Because you sat in jail for 48 hours now?

Because you realize that you guys aren't going to get away with this? Because you realize you've been charged and you're going to go to prison. Is that why?

No, it's because he told me that

no matter what, it would be okay. And obviously, since we're being charged with something...

So if you literally got charged, everything would have been okay. Well, I wanted to tell you guys what happened, but

I knew it would probably be

worse.

Amanda's Facebook messages to Caitlin erased any chance of plausible deniability.

She lured Caitlin to Krug Park and specifically told her not to reveal who she was meeting, asking her to keep it a secret under the pretense of hiding her marijuana use.

Tragically, Caitlin honored that request when she lied about her plans that night. In return, Amanda repaid her trust by slitting Caitlin's throat and stabbing her to death.

All in the service of some twisted, delusional beliefs in the supernatural.

Everything you're saying now

is exactly what he said about you.

You know, he's saying that

you said it had to be Caitlin, that it had to be an unclean soul, someone who's condemned, said that you've been talking about sacrifice for some time.

that he's kind of squashed it. But when you said it, he's, you know,

said he went along with it. He said he held her down

while you stabbed her and cut her throat How many of the wounds were from you on Caitlin? Let's be honest now. I hit her with a stick.
What about the stabbing or cutting?

I didn't stab her. Cut her throat.

He said you did it all while he held her down by the shoulders. It's not true.
I believe that you were both equally on board with it. I believe that you picked her.

I believe that you lured her out, just like the text messages messages show,

and I believe that what you need to do is be responsible for your actions. What makes this case even more chilling is the fact that Caitlin wasn't Amanda's only target.

She was just the first to respond. By her own admission, she reached out to four different teenage girls that night.
Any one of them could have ended up as the victim to this brutal, senseless murder.

Caitlin Root

was just unfortunate and friendly. She accepted Amanda's invitation to hang out, which was her undoing.

Investigators would later uncover an even more disturbing detail. Amanda and Sebastian had created a twisted mandate for themselves to kill two people per year.

Had they gotten away with Caitlin's murder, there's little doubt they would have struck again.

I'd be curious to know what your feelings are on these other three girls.

If maybe all four of these girls

really you didn't really care that much for,

the first person that would have went with you would have been the person that she's just the one that went.

Yes.

Following Amanda's confession, which was filled with contradictions and obvious lies, investigators sat down with Sebastian one last time to confront him with what she had said. He denied most of it.

falling back on memory lapses and claiming he couldn't recall details. It's funny how amnesia hits after you do something really bad.

Much like Amanda, this follow-up interview revealed a drastically different version of Sebastian. The cold, stoic follower of Hades, lord of the underworld, had vanished.

He was replaced by a frightened, trembling young man who looked nothing like the supernatural villain he claimed to be.

You seemed perfectly fine. You didn't seem like you had these, you know, kind of like now with the shakes and the having the difficulty called.

It doesn't seem even

it seems like more you're acting more than anything right now. And I know that's nerves and you don't want to come off as this terrible animal or whatnot, you know.
And I don't think you are.

I think you guys got caught up in a

kind of romantic notion that this was...

something neat or cool and now that the realism set in that's really not so romantic and it's not so neat. You know, it's not the Twilight Saga, you know,

it's real life

and it's affected both you guys and your families and Caitlin and her family.

You know, you're kind of looking for an out in a sense of trying to bury yourself behind this persona. I do.
I think you got wrapped up in this shit mentally, physically, emotionally.

And then when it happened, you know, and now that they have to face the realism of it, I think the realism has hit home, you know,

and it's a mess.

Indeed, this situation was a disturbing mess. And it was now up to the justice system to sort it all out.

On that note, Amanda had an unusual suggestion for how she thought the system should deal with her.

You guys are involved in this. Caitlin's dead.

What do you think the appropriate punishment would be?

I mean, honestly, honestly for me I was there and I didn't tell anybody anything happened

so

I mean I should be put in jail for some time but I do have a baby that's two months old and that's a vital part of his life because he's going to be crawling soon.

He's going to have his first Halloween without me there already. He's going to

start talking and he's growing out of all of his clothes that I got for him and stuff and I'm never gonna get to see him in those and I'm not gonna get to dress him and stuff like that

I don't know I mean

I mean there's house arrest but

Amanda suggested that as a mother house arrest would be an appropriate form of punishment Fortunately, a prosecutor and judge saw things a little differently.

I hate to keep beating this drum because Jesus Christ, talk about female privilege, but yeah, that's what every baby needs.

A psychopathic, moronic, devil-worshiping, loser of a mom with bad taste in men, abandoning them to go kill innocent young women. Sure, Amanda.

In the end, both Amanda and Sebastian accepted plea deals, but not the kind they wanted.

They pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were each sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. I would leave you with this.

Her grandparents. She'll never.

I've listened to all of the things that people said. Yeah, but this is me saying it.
Okay.

You know, when we care,

when we compare

the things that you're going to miss,

that sucks.

But

you have a chance at some life in the future. You have a chance of parole.
You will.

I mean, as young the age you are, chances are you'll probably come out of prison a young woman yet and get to remake the rest of your life for the better, I hope.

But Caitlin will never have that opportunity. The murder of Caitlin Root wasn't the result of a sudden outburst or tragic misunderstanding.

It was a calculated act, fueled by delusion, detachment, and a warped sense of purpose.

Amanda Bennett and Sebastian Dowell had isolated themselves from the world, living in a bubble of dysfunction and feeding off one another's twisted beliefs, seemingly with mom's approval.

They spiraled deeper into a fantasy where they weren't just ordinary teenagers, where they weren't just the losers that we all know them to be, but in their their own minds they were powerful, dark figures, fulfilling some higher, unholy calling.

What a bunch of fucking losers. In truth, they were nothing of the sort.

They were deeply troubled, profounding, immature high school dropouts, clinging to half-baked ideas about Satanism and sacrifice, desperate to inject meaning into their otherwise aimless lives.

Their belief system wasn't just stupid, it was deadly, and Caitlin Root paid the ultimate price for their stupidity.

She was a kind-hearted, free-spirited, and trusting 17-year-old who wanted to hang out, have a good time.

Her life, her future, and her relationships were stolen in a brutal, senseless act committed by two people who confused cruelty for purpose. What's most haunting is how random this all was.

Caitlin wasn't targeted because she was part of a love triangle or a bitter betrayal. She was just the first person to say yes to a Facebook message.
That's it. That's all it took.

One moment of trust, one response to an invitation, and her life

was over.

As if making friends isn't already hard enough. These losers go around killing people who want to be their friend.

If nothing else, this case is a stark reminder of how dangerous isolation can become, how toxic delusions can fester, and how easily the innocent can be pulled into someone else's

madness.

This show is written and produced by Michael Stabil, hosted by yours truly, Mike Boudeth. Thank you so much for joining us.
If you like the show, check out our website, sorgenscale.com.

You'll find our TV show on there, which is pretty good. You might want to check that out.
It's available at only 20 bucks a month. You can cancel at any time.

Thanks for supporting and stay safe.

Hey, Mike, my name is Nicole. I have been listening since 2017.

Tell everybody about the show. It is my favorite thing.
Your storytelling is unmatched, dude. Listen, not like you need the advice from me, but screw the shit talkers.
You're incredible.

Keep doing what you're doing. Love the show.
Thank you.

Kishana wanted to pay homage to her son. I lost my son to cancer when he was just 14 years old, and I came to United Healthcare to make a difference.
She instantly made an impact on others.

Anything that I could do to honor him, I understood. I was once that person on the other side.
Through her work, she's been able to turn her pain into purpose. I took it from my boy.

He gave me so much. Hear more stories like Hishana's at UHC.com.

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