The Fight Of Your Life — Libby Caswell E5

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Speaker 16 Drew and Sue and Eminem's Minis.

Speaker 17 And baking the surprise birthday cake for Lou.

Speaker 17 And Sue forgetting that her oven doesn't really work.

Speaker 17 And Drew remembering that they don't have flour.

Speaker 16 And Lou getting home early from work, which he never does.

Speaker 17 And Drew and Sue using the rest of the tubes of Eminem's Minis as party poppers instead.

Speaker 18 I think this is one of those moments where people say, it's the thought that counts.

Speaker 17 MMs, it's more fun together.

Speaker 19 United Healthcare nurse Crystal checked in on a patient.

Speaker 20 We do a routine call after surgery, and I could tell in her voice that she was struggling.

Speaker 19 Crystal knew she needed help.

Speaker 20 And I knew that this is very serious. This is like septic.
This is life-threatening. And she knew just what to do.
And I called the hospital and said she's coming in, here are her labs.

Speaker 19 And got her the help she needed.

Speaker 20 I see my role at United Healthcare as a life-saving role.

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Speaker 14 iHeart originals.

Speaker 13 This is an iHeart Original.

Speaker 13 This story might 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.

Speaker 13 Please take care while listening.

Speaker 21 December 4th. That was our last visit together.

Speaker 13 Colleen Huff was Libby's parent aide, a professional assigned by the state to monitor her visits with her son Zaeve and help her work towards regaining custody.

Speaker 13 Each week, they'd meet at Cindy's house. Colleen tells me that Libby would often arrive at these visits excited and happy, as it was the only time she would get to see Zave.

Speaker 13 But on this date, December 4th, a week before her death, Libby is in a state of panic.

Speaker 21 She was like really upset and she was shaking and she just, she looked at her appearance. I mean, she was just a mess.
And, you know, I knew something was very, very

Speaker 21 different.

Speaker 13 Colleen's instincts are right. After some coaxing, Libby tells her that just a few hours earlier, Devin attacked her on the bed, strangling her.

Speaker 13 They had been staying with one of Devin's family friends, Gary Stevens, who happened to witness the incident.

Speaker 22 So when I opened up the door, I seen Devin was on top of Libby and he was choking her.

Speaker 13 Back at her mom's house, Libby tries to calm down.

Speaker 21 She was shaking, so I knew she was afraid.

Speaker 13 For years, Libby had kept Devin's abuse mostly hidden, only sharing bits and pieces with certain friends. But today is different.

Speaker 13 Telling Colleen about the strangulation is the only time I know of where she actually reported an act of violence to someone in a position of authority. And Colleen immediately jumps into action.

Speaker 21 I called all the shelters in Kansas City to try to find her a safe place to go.

Speaker 13 While Colleen's making phone calls, Libby tries to push aside her distress and connect with Zave.

Speaker 13 She cooks him pancakes and changes his outfit. And eventually, Colleen lines up a bed for Libby at a domestic violence shelter run by the Hope House.

Speaker 21 I found a shelter with availability. I cleared the rest of my schedule.
After the supervised visit, after she got to spend time with her son, she was going to go with me.

Speaker 21 I felt like she needed to be in a safe place.

Speaker 12 There's a fire through your window

Speaker 12 so why do she mind

Speaker 13 from iHeart Podcast I'm Melissa Jeltson and this is what happened to Libby Caswell

Speaker 13 I can't tell you a single time at night that she'd ever have her blinds open because she always was looking over her shoulder, always.

Speaker 23 This is not a homicide, this is a suicide.

Speaker 25 All she wanted to do was clean up and get away from him.

Speaker 24 She started jumping through all the hoops. She was like, I know what I need to do now.

Speaker 12 And from there,

Speaker 25 the last time I saw him, I couldn't even tell you which direction he went.

Speaker 12 Somebody dropped the ball.

Speaker 12 Watching the water

Speaker 12 arise

Speaker 12 while I sink tonight

Speaker 12 Washing the water

Speaker 13 Chapter 5 The Fight of Your Life

Speaker 13 December 4th, 2017 was supposed to be a happy day for the Caswell family. Libby's sister, Natalie, had just given birth to her first child, and this was the day she was coming home from the hospital.

Speaker 27 We pulled up to the house and my dad helped me carry, you know, all my bags and stuff in the door.

Speaker 13 But the welcome Natalie gets from her family is not at all what she imagined. Libby is at Cindy's house and she's deeply distraught.

Speaker 27 As soon as I walked in the door, she was standing in the living room with my mom and Colleen, and she was just crying, like really upset about something and at the time I didn't know why she was crying.

Speaker 27 Then I started hearing what they were talking about. They were talking about he did something to her and that's why she was so upset.
And so I was like, what's going on?

Speaker 27 And so they started telling me about how she was late to her visit because they were at Devin's stepdad's house and he

Speaker 27 heard them arguing and walked into the bedroom where they were staying and Devin was on top of Libby choking her.

Speaker 13 Despite the circumstances, Libby tries her best to celebrate her sister.

Speaker 27 We were in the kitchen and she was asking me questions about the baby and my birth and all that.

Speaker 13 But Libby can't hide her fear over what had just happened to her and what might happen next.

Speaker 27 Her voice was shaky and I was like, why don't you just come home? I don't, I don't, like we could tell him you're not here. She just kept saying, like, no, I can't do that.
And I said, well, why?

Speaker 27 Like, give me a reason. Why can't you do that? I don't understand.
And she said, well, because you don't understand what would happen. If I stay here, he would know I'm here.

Speaker 27 And it's not safe for you. And it's not safe for Zaye.
You don't know what he would do. And I have to stay with him to keep him away.

Speaker 13 But there is another option, the domestic violence shelter. Colleen had found Libby a placement at a nearby shelter run by the Hope House.

Speaker 13 It felt like a good compromise, an escape from Devon that kept her and her family safe. Libby agrees to go after her visit with Zaev, but there's a catch.

Speaker 13 Colleen would have to escort Libby to the police station first, then the police would take Libby to the shelter. This is the standard protocol for the intake process at Hope House.

Speaker 13 The CEO of Hope House told me that the police are are involved in order to protect staff and new clients during what is often a tense and highly charged moment.

Speaker 13 But in Libby's experience, involving the police meant risking a fine or arrest. It meant being called uncooperative, a nuisance.

Speaker 21 At the end of the visit, she changed her mind

Speaker 21 and

Speaker 21 decided not to go.

Speaker 13 Libby didn't say why.

Speaker 13 Nobody knows if it was her distrust of police, if she was worried about Devin's reaction, or something else.

Speaker 13 And it's possible that if Libby had spoken up about her hesitations, there could have been a different solution.

Speaker 21 You know, I tried to talk her into it, but that was...

Speaker 21 Well,

Speaker 21 if I had to do it all over again, I would have thrown her over my shoulders and put her in my car and made her follow through with that, but she didn't. And that's the last time I ever saw her.

Speaker 13 Libby leaves her mom's house alone at the end of her visit. She walks out of the front door and drives off in her Black Ford fusion.

Speaker 27 I just assumed that I would see her again on Monday so I kind of went about, you know, my life with my newborn. I think about that a lot, how I don't have any pictures of them together.

Speaker 27 They only met one time and didn't really think much of it because I thought she'd be back.

Speaker 13 But Libby never made it to that next scheduled visit with Zave.

Speaker 13 The following Monday, that was the day her body was discovered.

Speaker 13 The next seven days marked the last of Libby's life. It's hard to know exactly where she was or what she was doing because she didn't see her family again.

Speaker 13 Her phone, which would have offered insight into her whereabouts and communications, was never retrieved by police.

Speaker 13 But I've been able to gather bits and pieces of what happened during those days from talking to others. At some point, Libby reconnects with Devin.

Speaker 13 My guess is that it was pretty soon after she left Cindy's house. And it seems to me, based on how her family described her behavior, that she had recently relapsed.

Speaker 13 The couple would have had nowhere to stay. Gary had kicked them out.
Cindy refused to have Devin in her home.

Speaker 13 I heard from some friends that they may have stayed in an abandoned house house and also rented a room at another motel in town.

Speaker 13 On Thursday, four days before her death, Libby's car is stolen, allegedly by an acquaintance. She manages to get it back fairly quickly, but it's in rough shape.

Speaker 13 And then, one day that week, I couldn't confirm exactly which, Devin has an encounter with a man at his father's house who accuses Devin of stealing his drugs.

Speaker 13 The man's furious and reportedly ripping at Devin's shirt, pushing him around.

Speaker 13 Then, on Sunday, the day before Libby's death, Devin and Libby meet up for a few hours with Nathan, Libby's childhood friend.

Speaker 13 They all drive around town in Libby's car, listening to music and smoking pot. Nothing about this seems out of the ordinary to Nathan.

Speaker 26 This is one of those days that I would have never thought that they were arguing or anything. I mean, it seemed perfect.
She was all about him and he was all about her.

Speaker 13 Until they stop for gas and Devin goes in to pay. And the second Libby is alone with her friend, her cheerful demeanor drops.

Speaker 26 Libby looked at me and said, Nathan,

Speaker 26 I don't think I feel safe with Devin anymore. Like,

Speaker 26 I don't know.

Speaker 26 Something just seems off right now.

Speaker 13 In the brief moment they have together, Nathan offers to have Libby stay with him, but she declines. Devin gets back in the car and they're off again.

Speaker 13 And Libby switches to how she'd been acting before happy carefree

Speaker 13 hearing nathan's story i'm struck by how raw this moment of vulnerability is especially for someone like libby so practiced at hiding what she's going through it seems to me like it's a cry for help

Speaker 26 it was literally the night before

Speaker 26 she died and she waited until he went inside the quick trips to pay for gas.

Speaker 26 I wish I could go back in time and go stay with her at that hotel.

Speaker 13 Eventually, Libby and Devin drop Nathan back off at home and continue on their journey. Around this time, on Sunday evening, Cindy is worried about Libby and repeatedly sending her messages.

Speaker 13 She wants to know if Libby is going to make it to her scheduled appointment with Xavier and Colleen, her parent aide, the following morning. She messages her, Are you gonna be here?

Speaker 13 Colleen is expecting you at 9.30 a.m. Libby replies, I know, mom.
I need to be straight when I come see him.

Speaker 13 Those are the last words Cindy would receive from her daughter.

Speaker 13 At some point in the wee hours of Monday morning, Libby and Devon arrive at the sports stadium inn. Along with their friend Nick, they hang out in the parking lot for a bit.

Speaker 13 There, they meet another another guest, David Fristo. He was the one who encouraged Devin to call 911 after Libby's death.

Speaker 13 In his conversation with police, Fristo told them he hadn't interacted much with the couple when they first arrived, except some friendly hellos.

Speaker 13 When I tracked Fristo down five years later, though, he had more to say.

Speaker 12 Hello?

Speaker 28 Hello?

Speaker 12 Hey, it's Morso.

Speaker 28 Okay, I'm gonna go outside on the porch.

Speaker 13 I asked Fristo to walk me through what he remembered from his encounter with Devin, Libby, and Nick. He'd been asleep in his room and woken up by the sound of people talking.

Speaker 28 Only reason I went out there and talked to them, because they was exactly right in front of my door, my window, and they was talking so loud and making so much racket that I just got up and went out there, you know, because I'm thinking that they was out there arguing and but they wasn't.

Speaker 28 They was out there just having fun talking.

Speaker 29 You weren't annoyed that they were like waking you up when you had to go.

Speaker 28 No, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 12 I don't, I don't, no.

Speaker 28 But

Speaker 28 because it happens all the time when you stay at a motel like that, because it's always something going on.

Speaker 13 Fristo told me that they all hung out for a bit in the parking lot.

Speaker 28 I'm a person that'll talk to anybody.

Speaker 28 I'll talk to a brick wall, you know, so I just went out there and was talking and telling them, you know, we're just talking about everything, anything and everything.

Speaker 29 We was talking like what most men talk about you know sports and stuff like that we was talking about football baseball was Devin and the other guy Nick doing most of the talking or was Lippy as as actively in the conversation

Speaker 28 not as much she didn't really

Speaker 28 voice her opinion about anything really

Speaker 13 still Fristo's impression of the couple was that they seemed fine good even i thought they was actually married they both seemed really happy.

Speaker 28 I know that much.

Speaker 12 They wasn't arguing.

Speaker 28 You can kind of sense if somebody's arguing and fighting, but it didn't feel that way to me.

Speaker 13 I can't help but think about how Libby also seemed fine to Nathan, one of her close friends, until they got a moment alone and her whole facade crumbled.

Speaker 28 It's hard to say because people can put on a good act, you know what I mean? I don't know. It's hard to judge people.

Speaker 13 I know Libby made at least one more attempt to reach out for help.

Speaker 25 I may have been one of the last ones to speak to her on the phone anyway.

Speaker 13 At some point, when Devin was out of earshot, she picked up her phone and called her friend Brian.

Speaker 25 Basically, that phone call was her telling me that she was at a hotel.

Speaker 25 Devin had taken her there or she had met him there or something. I'm not really sure.

Speaker 25 But she didn't feel safe and wanted me to come pick her up.

Speaker 25 And it was a very brief call. It probably didn't last more than two or three minutes.
But best of my recollection, she said,

Speaker 25 he's here. I have to go.
I'll call you back. I'll call you right back as soon as I can.
I was like, promise me you're going to call me back. And she said, I promise and click.
And that was it.

Speaker 25 And that was the last I spoke to her.

Speaker 1 Your drive powers your day. Now let it power change in your community too.
And when it comes to helping children in the Bay Area, Shell can keep your kindness rolling.

Speaker 1 When you fill up at the Purple Giving Pump at Shell, a portion of your purchase is donated to charities like the California Fire Foundation.

Speaker 1 Download the Shell app to find your nearest giving pump, less than two miles away. Because giving back doesn't cost you extra.

Speaker 1 From September 1st to October 31st, participating Shell stations will donate a minimum of one cent per gallon of the fuel pump from the giving pump or a minimum donation of $300.

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Speaker 13 In the summer of 2022, I found myself standing in the parking lot of the Sports Stadium Inn,

Speaker 13 probably pretty close to the same spot where, nearly five years earlier, Libby and Devin had chatted with David Fristo before they checked in to room 319.

Speaker 13 The Sports Stadium Inn sits directly on Highway 40 in Independence, around the corner from the stadium where the Kansas City Chiefs play.

Speaker 13 During football season, the motel can attract out-of-town fans, who I imagine are sorely disappointed when they pull up outside a yellowing block of dingy rooms that look like they haven't been updated since the 80s.

Speaker 13 Google reviews mention shady characters, dirty linens, and frequent bug sightings. But for the most part, the clientele aren't football fans.
They're locals with few other places to go.

Speaker 13 I knew from reading police reports that the Independence Police Department was often at the motel, responding to 911 calls involving alleged drug sales, robberies, and assaults.

Speaker 13 As recently as August 2023, a man was killed there.

Speaker 13 But even so, I wanted to see it for myself, to get a better sense of the place, and potentially answer some lingering questions about the crime scene.

Speaker 13 When I told Cindy my plan to go, even in the middle of the day, she advised that I should bring someone with me, someone more physically intimidating, which is how I ended up accompanied by a six-foot, 200-pound private investigator who carries a concealed weapon.

Speaker 12 I'm Jim Murray. I'm one of the founders of Star Investigations LLC out of Jefferson City, Missouri.
I've been a private investigator for about close to 40 years now.

Speaker 13 Even with Jim Murray by my side, I was having some serious second thoughts. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I felt eyes on us.

Speaker 13 People were peeking through the curtains, opening their doors to look at our shiny rental SUV, the nicest in the lot. Almost immediately, I saw a drug sale take place through a car window.

Speaker 13 Jim Murray and I didn't linger to take in the scene. We headed into the the office and asked to rent room 319.

Speaker 13 Now, requesting a specific room was a pretty weird ask.

Speaker 13 All the rooms are essentially identical and equally dismal. And sure enough, the motel clerk told us room 319 was dirty and handed us keys to another room instead.

Speaker 13 There was an awkward moment of silence as Murray and I looked at each other.

Speaker 13 And then, without skipping a beat, Murray came up with a wild concocted story about how we were a couple and that specific room held special memories for us.

Speaker 13 We wanted to return there for old time's sake.

Speaker 13 I don't know what the clerk made of this explanation, but eventually when he saw we weren't going anywhere, he said if we really wanted that room, we could come back in 20 minutes and it would be ready.

Speaker 13 So we drove around for a bit, then came back and got the keys. Still the old-fashioned kind with 319 written on a cheap plastic tag.

Speaker 13 Holding them in my hands, I couldn't help but imagine Libby doing this exact same thing.

Speaker 13 Jim Murray, my producer, and I, grabbed the audio equipment and some notebooks and shuffled inside. And immediately there was a rapping at the door.

Speaker 12 What?

Speaker 12 Excuse me?

Speaker 12 What? What are you cool?

Speaker 12 Okay, we're just going to be a minute.

Speaker 24 She just dropped so I'm going to take some pictures.

Speaker 12 Give us about 10 minutes, okay? Thank you.

Speaker 13 The motel clerk told us we were only only allowed to have two people in the room. You can hear in my voice that I was nervous about their intrusion.
But it wasn't just that.

Speaker 13 Standing inside room 319 felt creepier than I had expected. Honestly, I wanted to get the hell out of there.

Speaker 13 And so we moved through the room quickly, taking photos and jotting down details that we thought might be useful later.

Speaker 12 See, this door has been repaired, replaced, or going

Speaker 12 to vacuum. Can y'all see morning as you see that?

Speaker 13 Jim Murray wanted to take some measurements of the bathroom where Libby died.

Speaker 13 He had doubts that Libby, at five foot five, would have been able to take Devin's belt, feed it over the top of the door, and then close it.

Speaker 24 What I understand is if the pressure is on this, this just falls out.

Speaker 12 Yeah, put the belt there and see if we can

Speaker 12 close the door up. He said the switch was sticking out.
I still don't think it'll work.

Speaker 12 I don't, well, maybe it will. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't.
You'd have to just be a real contortionist to do that.

Speaker 13 We had planned to spend some time in the room discussing the case, but I changed my mind and suggested we leave right away.

Speaker 24 Is there anything else we want to do here or should we hit it?

Speaker 12 That's all I needed. You know what? Now you've seen it inside.
You've been there yourself. We took the measurements.

Speaker 13 We packed up, piled back into the car, and once we were out of the parking lot, I brought out the recorder.

Speaker 33 So we were just at the hotel or the motel room where Libby died and it was very very small you know just enough room for a bed and there were two large mirrors

Speaker 33 one facing the bed and one on the side of the bed and a tiny bathroom with a really rickety door on it that almost came off just us opening and closing the door and an absolutely tiny bathroom.

Speaker 12 For me the saddest part is just looking at that space between the toilet and that bathtub.

Speaker 12 How sad is it to end your life right there in that area?

Speaker 33 It did not feel good in that room. It was a really sad place to go and a sad place for her to have those last moments of her life.

Speaker 13 In the weeks after Libby's body was found, IPD never returned to room 319, as far as I can tell.

Speaker 13 They didn't go back to measure the tiny bathroom and work through the logistics of Devin's story, nor did they try to track down more guests who'd stayed near room 319 that night, despite the fact that the impression I gathered was that the motel operated almost like a marketplace where people could wander around and buy drugs and sex.

Speaker 13 Instead, IPD waited two months for the results of the autopsy to come back. And even though it was ruled undetermined, they closed the case anyway, much to the shock of Libby's mom, Cindy.

Speaker 24 In my mind, I'm thinking,

Speaker 24 shouldn't we trust our police department? We started calling, and they were never available, and we couldn't get hold of anybody.

Speaker 13 As the months went by, Cindy came to the harsh realization that IPD was unlikely to do anything else in Libby's case.

Speaker 13 She was the only one still searching for answers.

Speaker 24 I was talking to another mother who had lost a daughter in independence, and her daughter's death certificate said suicide, but she knew darn well it wasn't by just the photographs and everything her daughter had been through.

Speaker 13 The mother was a local woman named Jackie Schroer. In 2017, her daughter Angela had also died under suspicious circumstances.
She was found shot in the forehead.

Speaker 34 Less than two months after her death, the Shrosay police told them the case was closed.

Speaker 15 Suicide.

Speaker 34 End of story.

Speaker 6 But that was just the beginning.

Speaker 13 To Cindy, the Shroer's experience already felt eerily similar to her own.

Speaker 34 Almost as shocking as learning about their daughter's death, they say was learning how the Independence Police Department dismissed this investigation.

Speaker 13 Dismissed was exactly how Cindy felt. And she wanted to put pressure on IPD, but didn't really know where to begin.
So she asked Jackie.

Speaker 24 I called her, and I was like, what do I need to do? Because I believe I'm in the same situation you are.

Speaker 24 And so she said, you need to get your ME records. You need to get all your police records.
Have you done that yet? And I said, no, I didn't know I could do that.

Speaker 24 I had no idea that you could get the reports and that they were public knowledge.

Speaker 13 Since Libby's case was officially closed, Cindy was able to request the complete police file. This was one silver lining at least.
But Jackie warned her that the road ahead would not be easy.

Speaker 24 She started advising me, get your stuff together because this is going to be the fight of your life.

Speaker 13 At this point, Cindy knew very few solid facts about Libby's death. Basically, all she had to go on was what police told her the night she learned her daughter had died.

Speaker 13 And so she was prepared to immerse herself in the case file, to learn everything the police saw and did.

Speaker 13 But Cindy's resolve was tested almost immediately with the arrival of an IPD disc containing photos of Libby's body.

Speaker 24 I didn't look at it at the DVD of the crime scene because I didn't want to. You can't unsee something that you've looked at.

Speaker 13 But Cindy also knew if she was going to get to the truth of what happened to Libby, she really had no other option.

Speaker 24 I waited, I think, about three days.

Speaker 24 And I prayed.

Speaker 24 And I prepared myself. And then plugged it in early one morning and watched it.

Speaker 24 I knew right then that that something was, you know, not right about the scene. I knew the way her body was positioned.
I knew just by reading all the reports and seeing it that

Speaker 24 she didn't die by herself, inflicted, you know.

Speaker 13 As painful as it was, the process strengthened Cindy's resolve.

Speaker 13 But if Cindy was going to change anyone's mind about what happened, she needed more than just a feeling, which is why she reached out to Jim Murray, the private investigator.

Speaker 24 He immediately called the police station the day we hired him in the room before we even left. He picked up the phone and he called IPD.

Speaker 24 I got an appointment to talk with someone, you know, and that was more than we'd ever gotten.

Speaker 1 When families face their darkest moments, Your kindness can be the light they need. And when it comes to helping children in the Bay Area, you can spark hope with Shell.

Speaker 1 When you fill up at the Purple Giving Pump at Shell, a portion of your purchase is donated to charities like the California Fire Foundation.

Speaker 1 Download the Shell app to find your nearest giving pump, less than two miles away. Because giving back doesn't cost you extra.

Speaker 1 From September 1st to October 31st, participating Shell stations will donate a minimum of one cent per gallon of the fuel pump from the giving pump or a minimum donation of $300.

Speaker 4 There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

Speaker 5 How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Speaker 6 Variety has the solution.

Speaker 7 Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Speaker 11 Where do you see the business actually heading?

Speaker 9 Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

Speaker 14 The only constant in Hollywood is change.

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Speaker 35 It was an unimaginable crime.

Speaker 36 It's four consecutive life terms for Brian Koberger, who killed the four University of Idaho students.

Speaker 22 The defense from a sinking ship.

Speaker 18 It was clear at that point, he was out of options.

Speaker 35 Nearly 30 months of silence until

Speaker 37 bombshell development, Brian Koberger appearing set to accept a plea deal just five weeks before his quadruple murder trial was set to start.

Speaker 1 No trial, no testimony.

Speaker 38 He has pleaded guilty to five criminal counts, one of burglary, and then four counts of murder.

Speaker 35 In this final season, we returned to Moscow with with interviews from those still searching for answers.

Speaker 10 Why did the prosecution take this?

Speaker 31 They were holding all the cars.

Speaker 24 How on earth could you make a deal?

Speaker 15 What message does that send?

Speaker 35 Listen to season three of the Idaho Massacre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 36 Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime.

Speaker 39 My husband comes back outside, and he's he's shaking and he just looks like he's seen a ghost and he's just in shock. And he said,

Speaker 30 your dad's been killed.

Speaker 30 This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar.

Speaker 2 Liz's mom had just been found shut in a closet, her hands and feet tied up, shouting for help.

Speaker 39 I was just completely in shock.

Speaker 30 Her dad had been stabbed to death.

Speaker 27 It didn't feel real at all.

Speaker 2 For more than a decade, Liz has been trying to figure out what happened.

Speaker 39 There's a lot of guilt, I think, pushing me, and I just, I want answers.

Speaker 13 Listen to Hands Tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 13 If you were to imagine a quintessential private eye, Jim Murray might not be too far off. He's tall, broad-shouldered, with tattoos on his forearms that peek through his rolled-up sleeves.

Speaker 13 He has a deep baritone voice that can be imposing if it needs to be. He really was the perfect person to accompany me, as you heard earlier, to the sports stadium inn.

Speaker 13 When Cindy hired Murray in the summer of 2018, he was entering a new phase of life.

Speaker 13 After nearly four decades of investigative work, his eyesight was failing him and he was almost ready to stop taking new cases. Almost.
Because he still makes time for a particular kind of client.

Speaker 12 I have kind of retired at this point, but,

Speaker 12 you know, my passion is helping families find answers when they're not getting answers. I've done over the years cases that are ruled to be a suicide and they may be a homicide, suspicious deaths.

Speaker 12 So it seems like I end up doing a lot of those.

Speaker 13 Murray told me his desire to help families like Libby's stems from personal experience. Some years back, his own daughter died under suspicious circumstances in Texas.

Speaker 12 These tattoos on my arms tell a story. The scales of justice, that reminds me every day that the state of Texas has failed to bring justice to my daughter and to my family.

Speaker 12 That one right there, when it says sheepdogs never rest, somebody harmed my flock. Those are there for a reason and they're to remind me every day, no matter how bad I feel, no matter what happens.

Speaker 12 I got to get my ass up and I got to go because I owe it to my family.

Speaker 12 If it weren't for my daughter's case and the Libby Caswells of the world, I'd be at my house sitting by my swimming pool sucking on Margarita by now.

Speaker 13 Mari knows what it feels like to be a parent desperately searching for answers.

Speaker 13 And he also knows that a PI like him is often much more likely to get information out of a police department than a grieving family member.

Speaker 12 Cindy struck me as somebody that was just getting stonewalled at every turn.

Speaker 12 And that's really where I came in.

Speaker 13 In fact, Murray already had a pretty good relationship with IPD at the time Cindy hired him.

Speaker 12 I'm very familiar with independents in my business. I know a lot of their detectives and they are good people.

Speaker 12 Do they make mistakes? Yeah. Do I always agree with everything they do?

Speaker 12 No. And I can tell you as a private investigator, we don't always agree with the police.
That's why there are private investigators in the world to go back and take a look at things.

Speaker 13 Five months after Libby's case was closed, Jim Murray began to dig through the case file that Cindy had acquired.

Speaker 12 I met with her, looked at all the photographs, and knew right away something was definitely wrong.

Speaker 12 You've got articles scattered all over the room. You've got nightstand drawer open.

Speaker 12 You've got a man's broken wristwatch out on the bed. The first thing that would probably go through my mind are these signs of a struggle.

Speaker 12 We have a term called JDLR, which means just don't look right. For me, the broken watch, signs of a struggle.
The ransacked room, what are they looking for? Could there have been a confrontation?

Speaker 12 So these are all things that would make it suspicious.

Speaker 13 Mari was also struck by the odd position of Libby's body.

Speaker 13 She had been found by police in the small space between the toilet and the bathtub, her feet slightly up against the wall i can't see any way the body would naturally fall in that position from a hanging

Speaker 12 that was the big telltale to me when you open that door just a little bit that body's going to come down and it's going to fall pretty much to the left side of the toilet because that's the direction the momentum is going to be carrying it

Speaker 12 bodies all the way clear on the right side of the of the toilet still just didn't make sense i brought this up with the police and they said oh he admitted that he held her after he found her.

Speaker 12 Holding somebody, crying, whatever. I get that.
You don't pick him up and lay him over here. Let me lay you over here by the toilet out of the way.

Speaker 13 Murray also felt that there was a lack of evidence proving that Libby had ever hanged from the bathroom door.

Speaker 13 The mark on the top of the door, which IPD discovered after interviewing Devin, wasn't convincing to him. He didn't think there was enough damage to indicate Libby died in the way Devin described.

Speaker 12 I realized she was a small stature person, but those are pretty flimsy doors. If you start to lose oxygen, your body is going to have an instinct to survive, even if you want to kill yourself.

Speaker 12 When you start losing oxygen, you're involuntarily going to move in some way.

Speaker 12 I would have thought that door would have shown more damage than just those little tool marks on the top.

Speaker 13 By the time we went to the motel together, the door had been replaced, so there was no way to look into this further.

Speaker 13 During Mari's investigation, he also requested records from IPD and got something that Cindy hadn't, a copy of Devin's entire interview with IPD the night of Libby's death.

Speaker 13 Mari was stunned by something that happened before the questioning even began.

Speaker 12 If you watch his police interview and listen really carefully, The police officer walks out and I know he did it by design, left him with his cell phone to see what he did, and he called his dad.

Speaker 12 You can hear the other end of the conversation if you listen closely and I actually could hear his dad saying, I'm not going to lie for you.

Speaker 12 And that told me that, okay, why would you need somebody to lie for you?

Speaker 13 The audio quality on the tape isn't great, but I've listened to it over and over too. And my team ran it through some software to clean up the background noise.
From what I can tell, Murray is right.

Speaker 13 Here's the critical part of their conversation. Devin says to his stepmom, tell my dad to come up here and let him know that I was at his house instead.

Speaker 12 Hey, tell my dad, tell my dad to come up here

Speaker 12 and let him know that I was at his house instead.

Speaker 13 His stepmom asks him to clarify. Is Devin telling them to say he was at their house after he left the scene?

Speaker 12 That I was at your house when I left there.

Speaker 13 Devin says yes, and then his dad, who's now on the line, says, quote, I can't lie for you.

Speaker 13 According to Libby's case file, the police never interviewed Devin's dad or stepmom. Never asked them if Devin had come over after Libby died, like he told IPD he did.

Speaker 13 I haven't been able to speak to Devin's father myself, despite numerous attempts, but I was able to interview his stepmom, Jamie.

Speaker 40 I don't recall that phone call. I don't have a lot of recollection of that night

Speaker 40 because honestly,

Speaker 40 I

Speaker 40 made some bad choices and you know, I had some mind-altering substances in my body in which I'm clean today, but I'm clean now, but I wasn't then.

Speaker 13 Devin's the only one who could tell us what he meant when he was talking to his parents parents that night, but he's declined to speak with me.

Speaker 13 To my ears, it sounds like he's asking them to cover for him, to say he was somewhere he wasn't.

Speaker 13 This moment feels like yet another missed opportunity for IPD, especially if Murray is right that the police were baiting Devin by leaving him alone with his phone.

Speaker 13 Why didn't they ask him what he was talking about? And why didn't they interview Devin's dad to corroborate Devin's story?

Speaker 13 There's another moment in Devin's phone call to his parents that struck Murray as ripe for further investigation. At one point, Devin's dad tells his son that he's concerned about how Nick is acting.

Speaker 13 It's hard to make out, but he says, Nick is worrying me, man. One wrong word and and you're in trouble.

Speaker 13 Jim Murray was suspicious of Nick's story already, that he happened to leave the motel just before Devin says he fell asleep for over eight hours and then came right back after Devin called him that night with news of Libby's death.

Speaker 13 There was also this tidbit contained within the initial police report. The motel clerk said that a person named Nick was repeatedly calling while IPD was on the scene, asking if the cops had left yet.

Speaker 13 Murray wondered if perhaps Nick knew a lot more than he was letting on, so he tracked him down in a nearby county jail where he was being held for an unrelated crime.

Speaker 13 This audio is pretty rough, too, but I'll summarize as we go.

Speaker 12 How are you, Nick? All right, good. My name is Jim Murray.
I'm the investigator, star investigations.

Speaker 12 I want to chat with you regarding the death of Libby Caswell.

Speaker 12 Now,

Speaker 12 tell me what you remember of that day, that evening, things like that.

Speaker 12 We actually arrived at like 6:30 that morning.

Speaker 13 We tried to check in earlier. Nick tells Murray a similar story to what he told IPD.
They checked into the sports stadium inn. Libby was acting suicidal, and then Nick left.

Speaker 13 He found out about her death when Devin called him in a panic that night. I was actually not too far away from the hotel by my buddy's house, and so we would have headed right up to the hotel.

Speaker 13 Nick mentioned something to Jim Murray that he didn't tell IPD, that he was dropped back off at the motel by his brother, which is interesting because his brother has actually come up a few times in my investigation.

Speaker 13 He's the one that Libby said stole her car earlier that week. He's also the person whose name and photo were printed out on a piece of paper found in room 319 the night Libby's body was discovered.

Speaker 13 Which leads me to wonder, is it possible Nick's brother was in the motel room too at some point?

Speaker 13 For that matter, did anyone else come and go from the motel room? And did Devin stay in the room the whole time as he claims?

Speaker 13 All of these questions would be easy enough to answer by simply reviewing the motel's security footage. But we don't have it because IPD never got it.

Speaker 12 Somebody dropped the ball. If they would have just gone back and got the video, one of two things would have happened.

Speaker 12 Either the car would have stayed there all day and not moved, which would have made his story of I was asleep all day a little more palatable. Maybe he just crashed.
But I would just about

Speaker 12 bet my best dog,

Speaker 12 and I like her a lot.

Speaker 12 that at the end of the day, you would have seen that car come and go on video.

Speaker 13 Mari believes Nick is in some way covering for Devin. And at one point during their conversation, he gives him some friendly advice.

Speaker 41 If there's anything you're not telling me or anything like that, don't let your loyalty come back and bite you in the ass.

Speaker 13 Nick insists that he's telling Murray everything he knows and that he's genuinely heartbroken about Libby's death.

Speaker 41 I'm going to ask you a real serious question.

Speaker 41 I want to straight up answer between you and me.

Speaker 41 Do you think Devin killed her?

Speaker 26 No, sir.

Speaker 41 What makes you so sure he didn't?

Speaker 41 I mean the passion and love they had in you just, I don't know. I just

Speaker 41 don't see her doing it.

Speaker 41 I was pretty, almost 100% positive he didn't do it. Almost 100%.

Speaker 13 Jim Murray, though, at the end of his year-long investigation, is left with the opposite impression.

Speaker 12 In In Libby Caswell's case, oh, absolutely, I'm 100% convinced that she was murdered.

Speaker 13 On the next episode of What Happened to Libby Caswell, Cindy continues her fight for the truth and tracks down a medical expert to weigh in on Libby's manner of death.

Speaker 43 When I reviewed the documents, it was clear that the physical evidence, principally the marks on Libby's neck, were not consistent with a suicidal hanging. They were consistent with a homicide.

Speaker 13 And the Independence Police Department responds to criticisms of its investigations.

Speaker 23 I don't have that arrogant, condescending nature about me, so I don't put myself on a pedestal above anybody.

Speaker 23 If you can come up with something or an idea, something we haven't thought of, by all means, let me have it.

Speaker 13 What happened to Libby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted by me, Melissa Jelton, with writing and story editing by Marissa Brown and Lauren Hansen.

Speaker 13 Episodes are edited by Jeremy Thal and Carl Cadel. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.

Speaker 13 For iHeart podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvell, with our supervising producer, Carl Cadel. Archival material courtesy of KCTV5 News.

Speaker 13 Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolf. Original music by Erin Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal.

Speaker 13 Our episodes are mixed and mastered by Carl Cadel. To find out more about my investigation or to send a tip, please email me at whathappenedtolibby at gmail.com.
Thanks so much for listening.

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.