Undetermined — Libby Caswell E2

Transcript

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Speaker 42 This story can be hard to hear. There's detailed talk of suicide and violence, but we think it's important not to gloss over the reality of what happened to Libby Caswell.

Speaker 42 Please take care while listening.

Speaker 42 I'm holding in my hands a green spiral notebook that Libby used to document the last few months of her life. I got it from her mom Cindy who found it in the trunk of Libby's car after her death.

Speaker 42 Thumbing through the notebook, a lot of the pages are filled with basic adulting stuff, detailed grocery lists, appointment reminders.

Speaker 42 Libby was due for an oil change, and from what I can make of her notes, she either was planning to or had already gone to a clinic to get the depot shot, a form of birth control.

Speaker 42 Cindy told me Christmas was Libby's favorite holiday, and in the notebook, it's obvious. Her shopping list for Xavier, who was four, spread out over a number of pages.

Speaker 42 On one page, a toy car, Air Jordans, a swing set.

Speaker 42 On another, fidget toys, chocolate peeps, Superman pajamas.

Speaker 42 Libby decorated these lists with sketches of Christmas trees surrounded by presents and snowmen. It's unclear if she ever bought any of these gifts.
She died on December 11th, 2017.

Speaker 42 Paging through Libby's notebook, I stumbled on a date written out in cursive, March 19th. I realized I'd seen it a few times before on Libby's Facebook page, shortened to 319.

Speaker 42 When I asked Cindy about this, she told me it was the anniversary of Libby's first date with her boyfriend Devin.

Speaker 24 They went with his family and they had a really nice blue minivan. First they went to eat and then they went and seen a movie.
And I don't remember the movie.

Speaker 43 I think we went to see where the wild things are.

Speaker 42 That's Jamie, Devin's stepmom.

Speaker 43 We were howling like the wild things do at the end of the movie in the theater. And I remember Devin being so embarrassed.

Speaker 43 I remember him telling me and Charlie in his act who he was going to marry at 14 years old. And we were like,

Speaker 42 you you know you're so young and da da da you have so much to go through and you know then it all started that first date libby and devin were only freshmen in high school for the next six years the number 319 took on an almost sacred significance to libby who scrawled it everywhere like an incantation

Speaker 24 She would do doodles, you know, of 319.11,

Speaker 24 Devin and Libby. Devin loves Libby, Libby loves Devin.

Speaker 45 So why does she mind?

Speaker 24 She was totally infatuated, however you want to say it, totally wrapped up in it.

Speaker 42 The number 319 has an entirely different connotation to Cindy now.

Speaker 42 One very far removed from those early idyllic feelings of obsession and puppy love.

Speaker 42 Because now, that number is inextricably linked with the room where police found Libby's body. The room at the sports stadium in.

Speaker 24 I didn't know anything about the room until we received our first reports. And then when I saw that, that's when I was like, oh my god, it was...

Speaker 24 It was room 319.

Speaker 24 Maybe Devin rented that room. They They specifically asked for that room because of something.

Speaker 24 Maybe it was random and they just got that room. You know, I wanted to know.

Speaker 24 Watching the water,

Speaker 24 the rise.

Speaker 24 While I sink tonight.

Speaker 42 From iHeart Podcasts, I'm Melissa Geltson, and this is what happened to Libby Caswell.

Speaker 44 His first inclination was that it was homicide.

Speaker 46 He was crying and upset. And I was like, man, what happened?

Speaker 24 They asked me my name. And was I Cindy Caswell?

Speaker 46 And it took him a minute to get it out of and he said my wife hung herself.

Speaker 24 And my heart just kind of froze.

Speaker 24 Watching the water,

Speaker 24 the ray

Speaker 24 of sinking again

Speaker 42 Chapter 2 Undetermined

Speaker 42 Devin, I'm Detective Shedley. Police Department.
You got your cell phone on, yeah? Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 47 I want you to let the detectives have in. Okay.
We'll get department.

Speaker 42 On the evening of December 11th, 2017, three hours after calling 911 to report Libby's death and then leaving the scene, Devin Martin arrives at the Independence Police Department in Libby's car.

Speaker 42 When he enters the station, he's taken into a small drab room to make a formal statement.

Speaker 42 Although he comes in voluntarily, he's immediately arrested on a handful of outstanding traffic tickets and read his rights. You have a right to remain silent.

Speaker 47 Anything you say cannot be used against a court of law. You have the right to talk to an attorney before we question you and have him or her presently.

Speaker 42 I obtained a video of Devin's interview with IPD through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Speaker 42 The original tape is around 55 minutes long, but for length and clarity purposes, I'm using just parts of it and playing some of it out of order. In the grainy footage, Devin looks upset.

Speaker 42 He's sweating, jittery, and doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands. He thrusts them into the front pocket of his hoodie.
He rubs his face.

Speaker 47 Let's start from the beginning, okay? Like I said, I want you to be detailed, I want you to be honest, okay?

Speaker 47 Because, I mean, we are, this is a death investigation. So

Speaker 47 take death investigations very seriously, okay? And what I need out of you is to need honesty.

Speaker 42 Detective Steve Schmidley had been at the motel earlier in the night investigating the scene when Devin called 911 for the second time to say he had talked to police.

Speaker 42 So Schmidley headed back to the station to interview him.

Speaker 42 And here he refers to Libby by her full name, Elizabeth Caswell.

Speaker 47 Who's Elizabeth Caswell to you?

Speaker 47 Your son's mother? Yeah.

Speaker 44 We were actually

Speaker 47 planning to get married and worked.

Speaker 42 Devin's voice is soft, like he's on the verge of tears. It's a little hard to understand what he's saying.

Speaker 42 But he tells the detective he and Libby have a child together, and they were going to get married in three months' time. When you guys get

Speaker 47 when you check into this motel, okay, so we set up at 6.30. When?

Speaker 42 Devin tells Detective Schmidley that he arrived at the sports stadium in early that morning.

Speaker 42 He was with Libby and another friend of theirs, Nick, and they were driving in Libby's car, a Black Ford fusion.

Speaker 42 Some of this, like what time they checked in, police already know from accessing motel records.

Speaker 42 But establishing a timeline of events that day is critical as police aren't sure exactly when Libby died.

Speaker 42 There is an almost 14-hour period of time between when the three friends arrived at the motel that morning and when Devin called 911 that evening that is unknown to police.

Speaker 47 You get there this morning. What do you guys do most of the day?

Speaker 47 Okay, so my friend Nick hung out with us until about maybe

Speaker 47 nine o'clock in the morning, 8.30.

Speaker 47 And we left and I took a shower, and I get out of the shower, and she said she was going to take a shower. And I remember, because we had been up all night, the night before, and

Speaker 47 I remember laying on the bed and passing out, but fell asleep. And

Speaker 47 I probably woke up, and it was

Speaker 47 probably around 8:30, I think. Roughly, what time do you think you fell asleep on the bed? I would say between 10 and 11 o'clock.
10 a.m. and 11 a.m.
this morning?

Speaker 47 And then at that point, you remained asleep

Speaker 47 the entire time until you woke up this evening? Yes, sir.

Speaker 42 Devin says he was asleep for more than eight hours. And when he woke up, he noticed Slippy wasn't around.

Speaker 47 And I remember looking, she wasn't in the room, so I went to check the bathroom and my belt,

Speaker 47 the top of it, I could see my belt sticking out of the top of the door. And when I opened the door, she fell forward.
And

Speaker 47 I picked her up,

Speaker 47 her skin was so pale, and her lips were blue. I'm sorry, man.
That's okay. I'm sorry.

Speaker 47 Oh, I can't believe this movie. This is real.

Speaker 42 Devin gets emotional here. He's just told Schmidley that he woke up, looked around for Libby, and saw his belt peeking out from the top of the closed bathroom door.

Speaker 42 When he opened the door, Libby's body fell to the ground. The detective leans back, taking it all in, then starts to recap.

Speaker 42 But Devin interrupts to tell him about something else that happened right before he went to sleep.

Speaker 47 You got in the shower, and you went to bed.

Speaker 47 We had the argument about my drug use. That's what we got to do about.

Speaker 47 That was this morning before you went to bed? Yeah, right after I got out of the shower.

Speaker 42 This is information that IPD had already gathered. One of the cops spoke to a guest staying in the room next door who heard a loud argument between a man and a woman.

Speaker 42 According to Devin, their fight was over his continued use of methamphetamine. Drugs were a constant source of tension between the couple.

Speaker 42 Schmidley doesn't seem very surprised to learn about Devin's drug use, and it's likely this was a pretty familiar story to him.

Speaker 42 Independence, Missouri has a long history with meth, which I'll get into later. And the Sports Stadium Inn, it's not a particularly nice place to stay.

Speaker 42 In the year leading up to Libby's death, IPD had been called there more than 150 times for theft, assault, and incidents involving drugs. Schmidley himself had responded on a handful of occasions.

Speaker 42 The detective doesn't linger on Devin's drug use, but before he can get to his next question, Devin pivots again and offers some more unprompted information about Libby and her mental state.

Speaker 47 I didn't think she would ever do it, you know.

Speaker 47 She was talking about killing herself the day before, but it was like

Speaker 47 she bullshit a lot of times when she says that, you know, I don't. So she talked about killing herself the day before?

Speaker 46 Yeah, yes, sir.

Speaker 47 Why?

Speaker 47 Just because our situation, she was fed up with...

Speaker 47 We have lost custody of our son, actually, the state has custody of him.

Speaker 47 but he presides with her mother, and we were going to get everything straight.

Speaker 47 Not stifled.

Speaker 42 The custody situation with their son was complicated, and I'll get to it later.

Speaker 42 But the picture Devin paints of Libby is of a depressed mother forcibly separated from her son and frustrated by her boyfriend's drug problem.

Speaker 42 Devin's story provides a reason why Libby might have taken her own life. Then he offers up his own theory for how she did it.

Speaker 42 Remember, Devin never says he actually saw Libby hanging because the bathroom door was closed, but he tells the detective that he thinks his belt was too long to have kept her feet off the ground.

Speaker 47 I'm really trying to understand it all because she, there's no way she could have hurt herself from the door, you know? Like, how could she have hung there if my belt's long?

Speaker 47 How could her feet have not been on the ground?

Speaker 42 It's an odd fact. I've puzzled over it too.
But Devin had an answer for Detective Schmidley.

Speaker 47 So I've been sitting trying to think,

Speaker 47 how could it have happened? I'm thinking maybe she

Speaker 47 put it in the door and like choked until she passed out because when I opened the door, she fell forward.

Speaker 42 Devin later tells the detective this is something he'd seen Libby do before. put a belt around her neck and pretend like she was strangling herself.

Speaker 47 I mean, when we were younger, and stuff, she would act like, you know, when you get an argument or something, she would act like she's choking herself with a belt, actually.

Speaker 42 Detective Schmidley asked Steven what he did after he found Lippy's body.

Speaker 47 I grabbed her. I didn't notice the belt was around her neck until after I pulled her toward me, and she was so stiff.

Speaker 47 Her body was so stiff.

Speaker 47 I'm sorry. No, you're fine.
You're fine. So, my poor baby.

Speaker 47 Mom. Oh, man.

Speaker 47 So, what did you do at that point? Once you freak out. Obviously, you assume.
Okay, they freaked out. I thought she, I mean, I assumed she was dead.

Speaker 47 I tried to undo the belt a little bit to where I could feel a pulse or something, and I think I was just shaking too much.

Speaker 47 I couldn't feel a pulse. And

Speaker 47 so I called 9 in the morning. I went in the shot.
And I got in the car with my dad.

Speaker 42 Devin's explanation, he was in shock, so he drove to his dad's. It might sound bizarre, but in my experience as a journalist covering traumatic events, people can act in all kinds of unexpected ways.

Speaker 42 You don't really know how you'll respond to a tragedy until it happens to you. You may think you'll be calm, act rationally, but when was the last time you found a dead body?

Speaker 42 Schmidley, in any case, seems to listen to this story without much judgment. He doesn't question Devin's decision to run or express much curiosity about where he went.
He notes it and moves on.

Speaker 42 But there's another detective in the room who, up until now, has just been listening. And he's more skeptical.

Speaker 47 Do you see how this looks suspicious, Devin?

Speaker 47 Despite you, yeah, yeah, that's why I'm here.

Speaker 47 That's why I'm here, you know?

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Speaker 42 By this point in the interview, Devin has been sitting inside a small interrogation room for about 40 minutes.

Speaker 42 This is what IPD has learned so far. Devin and and Libby and another friend Nick checked into the sports stadium in early that morning.
After Nick left, Devin and Libby fought about his drug use.

Speaker 42 Devin went to sleep sometime that morning and Libby headed into the shower.

Speaker 42 Devin woke up around 8 p.m., walked over to the bathroom, and saw the end of his belt sticking out over the top of the door. He opened the door and Libby's body fell to the ground inside the bathroom.

Speaker 42 He touched her body to see if she was alive. And then panicking, he called 911 and then drove away.

Speaker 42 Detective Schmidley's tone throughout the interview is relaxed and understanding, almost conciliatory. If he has any real issues or concerns with Devin's version of events, he doesn't say anything.

Speaker 42 But as the conversation proceeds, The other detective jumps in, prods Devin a little harder. Classic good cop, bad cop

Speaker 47 do you see how this looks suspicious Devin

Speaker 47 just by you leaving yeah yeah that's why I'm here

Speaker 47 that's why I'm here you know

Speaker 47 I don't want you we we've investigated a lot of death investigations absolutely I mean Detective Schmidley and I you know we have a lot of experience and some are very obvious

Speaker 47 suicidal you know suicide deaths and some are not so obvious Absolutely.

Speaker 47 Man, I promise you

Speaker 47 I would not ever do anything to harm her physically.

Speaker 47 I would prevent her from being harmed physically.

Speaker 47 Now there's going to be an autopsy. Know that they can determine.
Absolutely. And I would love to get the results.
What do you think that autopsy report is going to indicate?

Speaker 47 That she had strangled herself. You see how it's kind of suspicious though a little bit because we have witnesses say that you were arguing with her

Speaker 47 that day.

Speaker 47 And like I said, we had gotten to an argument that morning. Okay.
I would not do nothing to hurt my... That is my...
That's my wife. I understand.
I'm not trying to say you're accusing me.

Speaker 47 I'm trying to express that to you. And I understand, but

Speaker 47 I just want you to know that

Speaker 47 it's just a little suspicious of how you reacted, which, you know, most people would stick around.

Speaker 47 Look, to be honest with you, I've never had a good encounter with the police. Yeah.

Speaker 42 Devin is 21 at the time of this interview, and he's no stranger to IPD.

Speaker 42 By my count, he had been arrested around 10 times before for various nonviolent offenses.

Speaker 47 You've got to understand that we have a job to do, and it's not personal. Oh, well.

Speaker 47 But when we have several different factors involving this investigation, which are suspicious in nature, which, you know, I mean, I understand your drug usage and everything,

Speaker 47 but the whole argument thing and then just the way that she was positioned and so on and so forth. Well, that's because I picked her up on the street.

Speaker 47 Okay, and that's why you're here to explain some of those things that we feel that are suspicious in nature.

Speaker 47 Yeah, our fights are loud.

Speaker 47 We know each other. Well, obviously, because people heard you.

Speaker 42 The second detective pushes Devon about a claim he made earlier in the interview, that Libby choked herself in the past. Something about this story seems off to him.

Speaker 42 Like maybe it's a little too convenient. So he circles back to it.

Speaker 47 But she's tried to choke herself out with a belt before. Yeah, yeah, and I've had deliberately pulled her,

Speaker 47 pulled her hand off and get the belt out from around her night. And yeah, and that is the honest truth.
I mean, do you see,

Speaker 47 and I've investigated a lot of deaths,

Speaker 47 but I've never seen anybody be able to choke themselves out and kill themselves. That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, you just see what I'm saying? Because you're going to pass out.

Speaker 47 first. Yes, sir.
Okay.

Speaker 47 Honestly, I always, Steve, I don't know exactly how it happened.

Speaker 47 So let me ask you a question, Devin. Sir.
Okay.

Speaker 47 There's no doubt in my mind that you love her to death. There's no doubt in my mind that you guys, you know, were high school

Speaker 47 grade school, middle school to high school sweethearts. Okay?

Speaker 47 But to put this to rest a little bit,

Speaker 47 did something bad happen

Speaker 47 that things got out of control? No, sir.

Speaker 47 No, sir.

Speaker 47 Positive.

Speaker 47 I promise

Speaker 47 I'll put my hand on a Bible and I'll put it on everything I love on my children on my son's life. I would not ever do nothing like that.

Speaker 47 Never. Okay.

Speaker 47 Never would I heard it like that.

Speaker 47 I don't, I hope you guys do believe me. And if you don't,

Speaker 47 everything forensics figures out will prove that I

Speaker 47 wouldn't have called y'all and I would have dismissed and burned you know or through something I wouldn't have done that is what the truth is

Speaker 42 beyond denying any involvement in Libby's death Devin is adamant that he'd never hurt her before I don't I've never put my and I take pride in the fact that I've never put my hands on a fit a woman unless it's to stop her from hurting me.

Speaker 47 Yeah. And that's like hold her down, respect her until she calls down.
That's the only thing I've ever done. She's a exciting girl.

Speaker 42 As the second detective said to Devin, some suicides are straightforward. Some are not.

Speaker 42 In Libby's case, there were a lot of suspicious facts at play, but Devin seems to have explanations for all of them.

Speaker 42 The weird position of Libby's body was because he held her and tried to loosen the belt. He left the scene because he was scared of the cops and had been using drugs.

Speaker 42 And yes, they had an argument, but that's just how their relationship was. Volatile.

Speaker 42 The interview wraps up just after midnight, and around the same time, IPD clears the crime scene at the sports stadium inn.

Speaker 42 But before they do so, they check to see if there's any evidence to corroborate Devin's story that Libby hanged herself with a belt over the bathroom door. And they find something.

Speaker 42 A mark on the top of the door. The crime scene tech notes that it appears fresh and seems to be about the width of Devin's belt.

Speaker 42 Schmidley has one more person he wants to speak with: Devin's friend Nick, the other person inside the motel room that morning, and possibly the last person besides Devin to see Libby alive.

Speaker 42 At the detective's request, Nick comes down to the police station and they talk for a few minutes.

Speaker 50 It was just you and Devin and Liz, but she's okay.

Speaker 24 Any issues?

Speaker 45 No, I mean, she was like very like

Speaker 45 What's the word for that? Distressed about herself. She was just like very depressed and

Speaker 29 stressed and depressed.

Speaker 45 She was talking about committing suicide and I was like, no, you don't.

Speaker 29 When did she talk about committing suicide? This morning.

Speaker 45 And I told her, I was like, you don't want to do that. Like talk to her about her kid.

Speaker 42 Nick corroborates most of Devin's story and adds something new. He tells Detective Schmidley that that Devin called him after finding Libby's body.

Speaker 42 Nick then returned to the motel and the two drove together in Libby's car to Devin's dad's house. Schmidley wraps up the interview and sends him on his way.

Speaker 42 In his reports from that night, the detective summarizes his interviews with both Devin and Nick and writes, quote, investigation to continue.

Speaker 42 But I have the case file on Libby's death. And after Schmidley's interviews with Devin and Nick and the discovery of the mark on the bathroom door, the file essentially trails off.

Speaker 42 There's very little to suggest this initial investigation goes any further.

Speaker 42 This was kind of surprising to me because when police first arrive at the sports stadium inn, it's clear they're treating it as a homicide.

Speaker 42 There are at least a dozen officers at the scene, detectives, patrol cops, a crime scene tech, plus various personnel from the medical examiner's office.

Speaker 42 But then sometime during the night, there's a shift, and the focus of the investigation turns from homicide to suicide.

Speaker 42 By the time Cindy is notified about Libby's death, the IPD seems to have made up their minds.

Speaker 24 The only question they asked the night they knocked on our door to tell us our daughter was found in a motel bathroom,

Speaker 24 was she suicidal?

Speaker 42 The case isn't officially closed that night, though. IPD has to wait for the medical examiner to make his own determination on how Libby died.

Speaker 42 As one of the detectives told Devin, there's going to be an autopsy, and that should give everyone more answers, right?

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Speaker 24 They were going to set aside a room for us to come and be with her and say our goodbyes, and we could stay as long as we wanted.

Speaker 42 A few days after Libby's death, Cindy and her family were given the opportunity to see Libby's body in private at the funeral home.

Speaker 42 They planned to do a cremation and service for Libby, but wanted a moment alone with her first.

Speaker 42 Years later, Cindy's grief is still so raw, it's hard for her to speak.

Speaker 24 And she just looked so beautiful. You know,

Speaker 24 they had

Speaker 24 done her makeup and combed her hair.

Speaker 24 She was wrapped in a blanket up

Speaker 24 under her arms.

Speaker 24 And her arms were folded.

Speaker 24 And her head was like it was on a pillow.

Speaker 24 I talked to her and I told her I was sorry that I couldn't protect her and loved her.

Speaker 24 And then

Speaker 24 we just kind of stayed in there for a little longer and

Speaker 24 I had noticed that she had some scratches on her forearm.

Speaker 24 Really deep scratches.

Speaker 24 And I noticed her fingernails were broken off.

Speaker 24 She had a bruise on her nose.

Speaker 42 cindy told me that libby always liked to have her nails nicely done she was wearing light orange acrylics at the time of her death but at the funeral home libby's hands looked raggedy there was a cut on one finger and two of her acrylics were broken off roughly i got my phone out and i took a picture of the scratches on her arm

Speaker 24 and

Speaker 24 her fingernails.

Speaker 42 Why did you decide to document it yourself?

Speaker 24 I

Speaker 24 didn't know if

Speaker 24 you know if they had documented that stuff, so

Speaker 24 I just decided I would

Speaker 42 see Libby's body in that state unsettled Cindy, and so later when she got home, she decided she would look through Libby's car to see what she could find.

Speaker 42 Devin and Nick had been the last ones to drive Libby's car after her body was discovered. They later returned it to police and Cydney got the car back the following day.

Speaker 42 It had been sitting in her driveway ever since.

Speaker 42 From the outside, the car was newly dented, the windshield cracked, the dashboard loose.

Speaker 24 She was so proud of that car. I was just devastated that her car was in the condition it was

Speaker 24 because she took such good care of her car. It was always clean and smelled nice.
And so it was all very

Speaker 24 just kind of shocking, kind of

Speaker 24 devastation. You know, I just felt

Speaker 24 so heavy. I thought,

Speaker 24 how did this come to this?

Speaker 42 Cindy had been too distraught to look inside the car until now.

Speaker 42 And what she found surprised her. In the crevice of the seat, an orange acrylic fingernail.
She stared at it for for a moment, thinking about Libby,

Speaker 42 her body,

Speaker 42 the police investigation.

Speaker 24 I thought, well, they must have missed this fingernail, you know, or

Speaker 24 I had no idea what I was, why

Speaker 24 that would be there. And I was naive.

Speaker 24 It wasn't until much later, and I thought, why would they not search the car?

Speaker 42 Cindy told me she was under the impression that the investigation into Libby's death was ongoing. Two months went by while she waited for an update from the IPD.

Speaker 24 We tried to call

Speaker 24 several times to speak with someone. We never got a hold of anybody.
And we would just leave voicemails. We just didn't understand why

Speaker 24 they just wouldn't talk to us.

Speaker 42 On February 20th, 2018, Cindy received her first big piece of news in the case. Not from one of the detectives she'd been trying to reach at IPD, but in a letter from the funeral home.

Speaker 42 Inside was Libby's death certificate. The autopsy was complete.
The police received the autopsy report around the same time Cindy got the death certificate.

Speaker 42 Here's Major Anka, one of the officers who worked on Libby's case.

Speaker 44 We had gotten...

Speaker 44 the report back from the medical examiner.

Speaker 44 I can remember I was sitting in my office and Smidley came came in, and he was beside himself and said, The medical examiner ruled Libby's death undetermined.

Speaker 44 I go, What do you mean they ruled it undetermined? He goes, Yeah, they ruled it undetermined.

Speaker 44 That was something that really caught us off guard because when we get a, you know, all of our medical examiner reports, they come back: suicide, homicide, natural causes.

Speaker 44 I mean, this was the first undetermined that most of us had seen.

Speaker 24 When we received the death certificate and read Undetermined,

Speaker 24 it was like, you know, affirmation for me. I can't say relief, you know, because

Speaker 24 there's no relief in that, but in that feeling of, okay,

Speaker 24 we know she didn't do that, but now there's this horrible reality, you know, that

Speaker 24 the person she trusted to protect her,

Speaker 24 you know, potentially did it to her hurt.

Speaker 42 Cindy was suspicious of Devin, and rumors were circulating in independents that there was more to the story than he was letting on.

Speaker 42 Devin had been released the morning after he was interviewed by police, and as we heard earlier this episode, he had been hoping the autopsy report would clear his name.

Speaker 42 What do you think that autopsy report's going to indicate?

Speaker 47 Um, that he's been trailed or stuff.

Speaker 42 But the autopsy report didn't clear Devin. Undetermined didn't rule out homicide.
But it didn't rule out suicide either. It just meant the medical examiner couldn't really figure out how Libby died.

Speaker 42 It meant that the Independence Police Department should be looking at other evidence to figure out what happened to Libby.

Speaker 24 I was confident that they would launch a full investigation at that point.

Speaker 42 Specifically, she thought they would focus on Devin.

Speaker 24 I hope they would be looking at his story and corroborating what his story was.

Speaker 42 But that's not what happened. Instead, the IPD told Cindy the case was closed, despite the medical examiner's ruling.

Speaker 24 In my mind, I go, well, I'm thinking, isn't this backwards?

Speaker 24 Isn't the ME who decides if he doesn't sign suicide, don't the police do an investigation, you know?

Speaker 24 And that is when, that was my first

Speaker 24 time that I thought something's not right here.

Speaker 42 After the interview with Devin Martin the night of Libby's death, IPD did very little to corroborate Devin's story that Libby was suicidal beyond talking to his friend Nick.

Speaker 45 No, I mean, she was like very like distressed about herself. She was just like very depressed.

Speaker 42 And on Devin's other claim that he'd never laid a hand on Libby.

Speaker 47 Man, I promise you

Speaker 47 I would not ever do anything to harm her physically. I would prevent her from being harmed physically.

Speaker 42 IPD made no attempt to interview those who knew Libby and Devon best, who could speak to the intimate details of their relationship,

Speaker 42 which maybe would not have been that unusual in another case with different circumstances.

Speaker 42 Except for the fact that inside the IPD's own files were records of over a dozen 911 calls involving the couple.

Speaker 24 They had so much information about domestic violence between the two of them. They had it in their hands.
They knew that.

Speaker 51 So when I opened up the door, I seen Devin was on top of Lippy and he was choking her.

Speaker 51 And

Speaker 51 I got upset. I went out to the Independence Police Department where it occurred and I just told them what I had witnessed.

Speaker 42 That's next time on what happened to Libby Caswell.

Speaker 42 Troll through me

Speaker 42 from the rain and the tempest.

Speaker 42 Keep your ear to the ground

Speaker 42 What Happened to Libby Caswell is written, reported, and hosted by me, Melissa Jeltson, with writing and story editing by Marissa Brown and Lauren Hansen.

Speaker 42 Episodes are edited by Jeremy Thal and Carl Cadel. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.

Speaker 42 For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvell with our supervising producer, Carl Kadel. Fact-checking by Maya Shukri.

Speaker 42 Our theme song is written by Erin Kaufman and performed by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolfe.

Speaker 42 Original music by Erin Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal. Our episodes are mixed and mastered by Carl Kadel.

Speaker 42 To find out more about my investigation or to send a tip, please email me at what happened to Libby at gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening.

Speaker 42 Until I,

Speaker 42 until I fell apart,

Speaker 42 what a way to find myself

Speaker 42 in pieces,

Speaker 42 in pieces in the dark.

Speaker 42 Don't you know I'll follow you

Speaker 42 until I,

Speaker 42 until I fell apart.

Speaker 42 What a way to find myself

Speaker 42 in pieces,

Speaker 42 in pieces in the dark.

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