Toxic — Libby Caswell E4

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Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

This is an iHeart Original.

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.

Please take care while listening.

I've read a few autopsy reports over the years, and it's always a peculiar, disconcerting experience.

They're written in dispassionate clinical language, and yet are oddly intimate.

For example, in Libby's nine-page report, We learned that her right lung weighed 10 grams more than her left.

Her teeth were in good repair and appeared healthy.

Old acne scars were visible on her forehead.

Libby's autopsy was performed by Dr.

Robert Pytak of the Jackson County Medical Examiner's Office the day after her body was discovered at the Sports Stadium Inn.

She still had Devin's belt around her neck.

Dr.

Pytak noted that Libby's neck was completely encircled with a mark called a ligature furrow.

apparently caused by the belt pressing into her skin.

He also documented a number of other bruises and abrasions on Libby's throat, chest, back, and hands.

The opinion section of the report is short and concise.

Libby died of asphyxia, a lack of oxygen.

But Dr.

Pytak could not determine if Libby had hanged herself or was strangled by someone else, and so he left the manner of death undetermined.

There's one more page of the autopsy.

The results of Libby's post-mortem toxicology report.

Libby's blood was tested for certain substances, like cocaine, which was negative, and alcohol, which was negligible.

But one drug did show up.

At the time of her death, Libby had a high level of methamphetamine in her body.

You know, she was found with a toxic amount of meth in her system.

And so I struggled with that when I got that report.

Meth didn't literally kill Libby, but as I discovered reporting the story, it was a big part of her undoing.

There's a fire through your window.

So why do she mind

from iHeart Podcasts, I'm Melissa Jeltson, and this is what happened to Libby Caswell.

When I walked past, I saw him roll her to the side and just punch her really hard in the thigh.

I was like, kind of like, what if did he just hit her?

But to put this to rest a little bit,

did something bad happen?

Did things get out of control?

No, sir.

No, sir.

Positive.

He would laugh and say, They ain't never gonna catch me.

I'm too smart for them.

And yeah,

he'd just run off.

You know,

there could be a thousand maybe I shouldn't, but that didn't what happened.

Watching the water

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I

see tonight.

Chapter 4 Toxic

I knew, you know,

a lot about marijuana growing up, but I never heard about methamphetamine because we didn't know anything about that kind of stuff.

Cindy, Libby's mom, isn't what I would call a partier.

She rarely drinks, doesn't smoke cigarettes, and would rather watch TV than stay out late.

She told me that recently she began using legal marijuana edibles to help with the dread and anxiety that surfaces when she tries to sleep at night.

But although Cindy didn't have any personal experience with meth, a highly addictive drug that can be made with household chemicals, the town she raised her family in did.

In the 1990s, around the same time Cindy started having kids, Missouri and and Independence in particular became a hotbed of meth production.

In 1996 alone, authorities busted 75 meth labs in Independence, the largest number per capita in the nation.

This prompted the Christian Science Monitor to dub it the quote, meth capital of the United States.

Rolling Stone later ran a feature story on Independence.

called Postcards from Tweekville that solidified its reputation as a meth haven.

Fox News ran a national story that shined the spotlight on meth and the Independence Police Department.

How bad is the meth problem?

In Independence, Missouri.

It's bad.

We've got a major epidemic.

For the next decade or so, Meth continued to dominate local headlines and shape the workings of the police.

Every night, Independence Police make at least three arrests related to Meth use.

IPD solicited help from the community and positioned itself as the best solution to the problem.

And while the labs were mostly busted by the time Libby and Devin were in high school, the town was still sometimes disparagingly referred to as meth dependents.

And the drug, it was still pretty easy to find.

I don't know for sure what year Libby first tried meth, but by her friends' accounts, it took place in high school sometime after Zave was born, and it was her boyfriend Devin who introduced her to the drug.

He had started dabbling in drug, like harder drugs than what any 17-year-old should be doing.

Holly, Libby's high school friend.

It wasn't just the weed that he was, you know, smoking.

And I think that's whenever he had actually started doing meth.

And

then he got Libby on it.

She said that, you know, he kind of peer-pressured her into trying it because they were in front of, you know, a bunch of his friends.

I mean, I don't even think she knew about alcohol by the time she met him.

And then as soon as she met him, she knew every drug, every pill, every drink, everything.

Nathan was childhood friends with Libby and later became friends with Devin, too.

He told me they would all sometimes get high on meth together.

For Libby, I think it just made her more sociable.

I think that we both always agreed that we liked the rush of it, the rush it gave us.

That's what I liked about it.

And I liked the fact that like

whenever i did it you know i you know could go in public i could i could basically accomplish anything is what it made me feel like as nathan saw it libby used meth to boost her confidence and maybe also to fit into devin's social circle this new part of her life she kept it secret from her family and even many of her close friends Here's Holly again.

She didn't tell me about the first time.

I mean, she just kind of ghosted me for a while.

I knew she was doing something, but she just wouldn't admit it to me at first.

And she just finally broke down one day and she's like, I don't know what to do anymore.

And here is where I believe Libby's life split in two.

The bright social side that she presented to her friends and family and the darker drug-consumed side that she kept hidden.

But with a drug like meth, it's not so easy to conceal its effects from those who really know you.

And her family soon began to suspect something was going on.

Here's Natalie, her younger sister.

Her whole face would just completely change and she would be like

just not herself.

She was always like this really bubbly, happy, talkative person.

And then when we would go see her, she was just like depressed and angry and irritable and and so it was like a completely different person

and that's how we started to recognize when she was on and off.

Cindy started to notice something was wrong when Libby, already lean, rapidly lost a lot of weight.

I said Libby, I'm so worried about you.

You look like a skeleton.

You know, are you eating?

What's happening?

And what was it like for you to see your daughter in that situation?

It was bad.

It was just devastating.

I would leave here and cry.

Libby and Devin would use together on and off again from around the age of 17 until Libby's death at 21.

Their drug use pushed their relationship even more into the shadows, away from others' probing eyes.

And Libby's friends tell me, the more Devin used drugs, the more violent he became.

She told me that

when they would get in fights and it'd be really bad he would push her

hold her down and choke her and he would do it in front of her kid

when he wasn't on drugs he was really cool that's how he clicked but then you know he was doing drugs and he was one of those people that would stay up for like a week and when you do that you get crazy you know so he was always paranoid he was always angry violent he really went off the rails with meth like some people go off the rails some people don't

There's a lot of alarmist rhetoric around meth users, that they're unhinged, psychotic, and deeply dangerous.

Take this Fox News clip from the 90s.

And where meth goes, death follows.

I'm talking about a drug that induces violent behavior, that creates violence.

And people who never have been violent wouldn't think of being violent.

This is still a common stereotype about people who use meth and other drugs too, that they are more likely to be violent and specifically violent towards the people closest to them.

Not everyone who abuses substances is a domestic violence offender.

I think the important thing to remember is it doesn't cause the abuse, but it definitely complicates abuse.

Marianne Matheny is the CEO of the Hope House, a domestic violence agency that covers the Kansas City area, including independence.

She has seen firsthand the complicated interconnected relationship between drugs and domestic violence.

How drugs can hypercharge abuse.

That can take a situation into a more violent level much more quickly when someone is intoxicated.

And how drug use can isolate victims even further.

I think where it gets difficult and it's really hard for people to understand is that it isn't uncommon for the victim to also be someone who uses substances.

It can be a way to deal with what's going on and trying to escape for just a little while, like my world is falling apart.

It's easier for me to use.

The other piece is that it's often used as a control mechanism by the abuser as well.

It's not uncommon for an abuser to force someone to use at the same time that they're using and then becoming addicted becomes just part of that whole relationship.

Mathimi has observed how abusers often blame drugs and alcohol for their own bad behavior.

I'm not abusive.

I was just high.

Victims may desperately want to believe this narrative too.

Because it's easier in your mind to rationalize this atrocity and behaviors that's happening to you, because otherwise you have to look at this person and say, but you really don't care about me if you're going to abuse me.

Because the reality is.

A person would have been doing those things to you, even if they were sober, because we know that substances don't cause it.

I don't want to give the impression that that drug use defined Libby's life.

She quit using on a number of occasions and had long, prosperous spells where she was clean and sober.

These periods, they tended to coincide with times when she broke up with Devin.

And that's whenever Libby was really her best is when Devon wasn't around, she could see her full potential.

But inevitably, he would re-enter the picture.

Libby's friends, Autumn and Mariah, explained to me what that cycle looks like.

Libby Libby was almost like a dog on a leash.

Like, she could only get so far from Devin before here comes Devin or here comes Devin's call.

He would come back when he was sober.

He would convince everybody he's going to do the right thing, you know, and treat her right and treat Zave right.

He would love bomb her and give her everything and tell her whatever she wanted.

And all she wanted was to be a family with the father of her child.

And he would promise her that.

That's pretty much how Libby always got looped back into the cycle: how he claimed he'd be a good dad this time around.

You know, Zave needs a dad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The whole good dad game.

Sometimes they would be good for months.

He wouldn't hurt her.

They wouldn't use drugs.

They would be clean and happy and healthy.

And then

the newness and him trying starts to wear off, and he would get mean again.

And then he would go out and use drugs.

and then she would end up using as well because

I mean her partner's out there doing everything and being abusive to her.

And how many times do you estimate that this happened while you knew her?

In the couple years,

probably like three or four.

I know she always felt like when she had nothing left, like that's what she had was

him and drugs.

And she would just keep

keep going back until she got her feet under her again and she'd kick him and kick the drugs and be happy and healthy and sober by herself

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Here we go.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, dear Xavier.

Happy birthday to you.

Blow your candles.

Blow the candle fire.

Woo!

Yay, yay!

Do you want a piece of the Batman cake?

Batman cake.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, I'm going to give you some.

Hold on.

It's the beginning of May 2017.

Zave is turning four.

Libby bakes him a chocolate cake decorated with a blue and gold Batman symbol.

It looks professional.

Cindy would be proud.

In the video, Libby appears happy and carefree.

A mom trying to make her son's birthday special.

But really, she's putting on a brave face.

Just a few days earlier, she and Devin broke up once again.

And this time, when he left, he took the car she used to get to work and drained their joint bank account, leaving her stranded and broke right before rent was due.

Libby was sad and understandably furious.

But stealing was something Devin was known to do when he was using.

He stole from strangers, friends, and now the woman he claimed to love.

A few weeks later, Devin's reckless behavior caught up to him.

He was arrested and charged with burglarizing someone's apartment.

He ended up spending most of the summer behind bars.

It was a long time to be away from Libby.

By my estimate, this was the longest separation that had in years.

And for Libby, this was a complicated period.

She was grieving the loss of the life she was trying to build, a family with Devin and Zave.

But Devin's incarceration allowed her enough space, both mental and physical, to start reimagining her future.

She was always outgoing, you know, and happy.

But

she also was a little stressed because she was trying to do everything on her own.

With Devin out of the picture, Libby began to reestablish relationships with people she'd cut off, especially her mom, Cindy.

We would make dinners, and we had one of those speakers that hooked up to the Bluetooth, and we'd take turns picking out songs, you know, and playing music.

That summer, Libby kept herself busy between visits with family, looking after Zave, and a new job at the mall food court where she got to work beside her friend Mariah.

Oh, is it recording?

Yep.

This is a clip of them walking from the parking lot to the mall entrance, already dressed in their uniforms for the day.

Woo!

The person making that woo sound, that's Libby.

In this video, she's laughing, mugging for the camera.

A pretty normal 21-year-old on her way to a summer job.

She worked right next door to me.

We would take our breaks in the hallway together.

We would talk all day during work.

I mean, our managers hated that we worked right next to each other.

We were constantly talking, constantly causing chaos together.

We would hang out outside of work almost every day, if not every weekend.

Mariah's strongest memory of Libby this summer, the last summer of Libby's life, was the day she showed up at the mall to return the engagement ring Devin had given her that past Christmas.

I'll never forget.

She called me in a super good mood saying that she's on the way up to the mall, but it was her day off and she wanted me to come out and walk inside with her.

She was just beaming.

She came up to the mall to exchange and get her money back for the ring that Devin had bought her and she said she was going to be moving on.

She told me like she was done, done going back and forth.

She's finally going to do what she needed to do for her.

And she was finally turning a page.

Many people do successfully get out of abusive relationships.

I've met a lot of them, heard their stories.

Rarely does it happen on the first try, or even the second or the third.

In my opinion, the cycle that Libby went through, clean and single, using and back with Devin, that was her process of trying to leave.

Because leaving is a process.

It takes time and resources and support.

and a hell of a lot of courage.

And that summer of 2017 seemed like a turning point for Libby.

She was building a new foundation for her life.

But it wouldn't, it turned out, be enough.

As soon as Devin came back into the picture, she lost her car, her apartment, her job, everything.

You know, the only thing she was still hanging on to was her sobriety.

Devin is released from jail in mid-July.

Almost immediately, he tries to get back into Libby's life, calling and coming by her apartment.

Libby resists, stays vigilant.

She never knew when Devin was watching.

I can't tell you a single time at night that she'd ever have her blinds open.

She always was looking over her shoulder, always.

When Devin fails to get Libby's attention, he posts on Facebook.

about how she was stopping him from being the good dad he yearned to be.

Quote, Daddy has a big boy and it's killing him not to be able to see him.

Libby, please just be groaned about all this, please.

It's not his fault that we can't seem to stay in cahoots with one another.

To all the mothers out there, let your child be in the father's life.

His next post turns angry.

I'm about to snap like a slim Jim.

Can't believe the choices that she's making.

WTF, she won't answer my calls.

I don't know how Libby responded to Devin's aggressive pleas because she didn't share any of this with her family.

Here's Cindy.

She didn't tell me a lot of stuff because she knew I would be mad if she was talking to Devin.

I think she was ashamed of it, you know, like after everything he'd done to her.

The close bond that Cindy and Libby rebuilt that summer disappears pretty quickly.

I

started not being able to really talk to her.

Like, I noticed less contact with me.

Only like about Xavier and when we had to have contact.

I was calling her and texting her, where are you?

You know,

I need to talk to you.

Cindy had been here before.

She knew what it meant when Libby went silent.

It meant Devin was back in Libby's life, and probably Meth was too.

My name is Ed.

Everyone say hello, Ed.

I'm from a very rural background myself.

My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin, so like, it's not like...

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago.

I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different.

On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear.

On 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family.

And then he came to my house.

So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder take center stage.

Available now.

Listen to Wisecrack on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Andrea Gunning, host of Betrayal.

I'm excited to bring you a brand new season of Betrayal Weekly.

I wanted to let you know that you can get access to all episodes of Betrayal Season 1, 2, 3, and 4, and every single episode of Betrayal Weekly ad-free.

with an iHeart True Crime Plus subscription.

Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

Plus, you'll get access to all all episodes of Betrayal Weekly, one week ahead of everyone else.

Available only to iHeartTrue Crime Plus subscribers.

So don't wait.

Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrime Plus, and subscribe today.

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Cindy knew Libby was back with Devin and using, and she felt powerless, unable to help.

This situation, it might sound familiar if you have a family member who struggles with substance abuse.

It can be impossible to know the right thing to do, how to support your loved one without feeling like you're enabling their drug use.

or punishing them when they're already so low.

And practically, there's very few options and not a lot of resources for families going through this.

Cindy's overriding concern is her daughter's safety and the safety of her grandson Xavier.

She's worried that he might be being left unsupervised, and so she takes a quote, tough love approach.

On September 7th, 2017, She calls Missouri's child welfare hotline to report that she believes Xavier is living in a home where drugs are being used.

I felt horrible at first.

I was just really down about that, but I was also conflicted because I thought this is exactly what needs to happen.

She needs to have this accountability and make it serious.

Like, you're going to lose your child over this guy, you know?

The repercussions are swift and severe.

Almost immediately, Xavier is placed into temporary custody with Cindy.

Libby is assigned a case manager and the state lays out a plan.

If she wants to regain custody of her son, she has to prove she's a responsible mother.

And a big part of that is getting clean.

She's required to do random drug tests, to participate in meetings with a social worker, and to go to court regularly.

She is also allotted a weekly visit with Zave, overseen by Colleen Huff, a state-assigned parent aide.

We work with at-risk families whose children have been removed and placed in alternative care.

We're kind of the eyes and the ears for the caseworkers because they never see the children and their parents interact together.

Colleen observed Libby as she interacted with Zave,

usually at Cindy's house.

She hated it at first.

She hated Colleen.

She's like, why don't I got to meet that lady?

She gets on my nerves.

And then she ended up loving Colleen.

Yeah, because she, you know, you don't want to be made to do things that you don't want to do, but she saw the good in it eventually.

Libby took the state requirements seriously, abiding by the many rules and random drug tests intended to keep her accountable.

And as far as both Cindy and Colleen saw, Libby was committed to getting her son back as soon as she could.

Libby loved her son.

You could tell that by their interaction, you know, just close, connected, lots of hugs, kisses, and, you know, just fun times, laughing and,

you know, just doing whatever he wanted to do.

So she was super sweet and seemed vulnerable, you know, like she needed strong support.

She was just somebody that I really wanted to help.

The truth is that Libby did need help.

I want to pause here for a second to consider the formidable challenges that she was facing at this moment.

Libby was trying to quit methamphetamine, a drug that is notoriously difficult to kick.

She was navigating a long-term abusive relationship that, by her account, had grown more dangerous.

And then she lost custody of her son, the person who brought her the most joy.

This was undoubtedly a low point in Libby's life.

Even with help, she would have had a long road ahead of her.

So she talked about killing herself today because of work.

Yeah, yes, sir.

Is it possible that Libby was suicidal, as Devin claimed the night her body was found?

Why?

Just because of our situation, she was fed up with,

we have lost custody of our son.

There are a number of factors in Libby's life that studies have linked with increased suicidal behavior, like drug abuse, which impacts brain chemistry and can result in the loss of self-control, and experiencing domestic violence, which can be traumatic.

One report by the CDC found that in 25% of female suicides, intimate partner problems are a contributing factor, and that rate is even higher among teens.

Libby's young age might also qualify as a risk factor, says Elizabeth McCulloch, a youth mental health expert and suicide prevention advocate in Missouri.

One of the things that we see frequently in young people, whether we're talking about trauma or substance misuse or behavior disorders, is they only know what they know today.

They don't have the ability to do a lot of forward thinking.

They also have not had the opportunities to experience a positive failure.

So learning from their mistakes or learning from their failures or having a better understanding that things can improve, things are going to get better.

This is just a moment.

It's not the rest of my life.

McCulloch says, when it comes to suicidal factors, it's never any one thing.

It's a layering on a loss of identity, a feeling of disconnection, a feeling that you may be a burden on other people, that your behaviors or your activities are pulling other people down.

You're responsible for that.

Losing a sense of purpose in life.

There's no purpose for me to keep continuing forward.

Things are never going to change.

I'm stuck.

And then also that thought of it's just hopeless.

It's hopeless.

There's no hope.

So that really critical lethal intersection is between hopelessness, burdensomeness, and a sense of having no purpose.

When I described all that Libby was facing at this point in her life, McCulloch recognized another risk factor.

Anytime there's a loss, and what you just described were multiple losses, right?

She lost her child.

She's feeling like she's lost herself.

She's not able to control her substance use, so she gets lost in that.

Loss is a common thread that we see, whether it's perceived or real.

When you peel away the substance use, you peel away the abusive relationship, you know, you've really got some raw emotions that are sitting there that are difficult to explain and talk through if you don't feel that you can trust the people around you to talk about that.

We know that Libby tried to hide a lot of things about her life that she was capable of putting on a happy face.

On the outside, people could have seen her life and said she's maybe a little messed up, but she's got some good things going on and she's looking towards the future.

She's got some plans and she's trying to pull it together to get her son back without really recognizing the energy and the distress that she's going through to try to keep herself moving forward.

Of course, McCulloch never worked directly with Libby, and these risk factors she's pointing out, they don't automatically mean Libby was suicidal.

They just mean she was at risk.

And the thing is, Libby did have experts in her life around the time of her death.

Experts who were observing her mental health and who didn't notice any overt signs of suicidal behavior.

One of them was her parent aide, Colleen.

Do you believe that she was suicidal?

Had she ever made any suicidal threats?

I I just, I, I

can't perceive her doing that just because she loved her son so much that I just don't believe she would be capable of doing that knowing that she would never get to see her son again and that her son would grow up without a mom.

So I don't believe so.

If anything, Colleen saw Libby's fight to get her son back as a catalyst that propelled her into action.

Despite the challenges of state intervention, Libby was eager to do everything she could to prove herself a capable parent.

We had several goals.

I was working with her to get these services set up for her son.

Also, GED classes and completion of those classes.

And then we had started applying for public housing.

Colleen wasn't the only professional observing and monitoring Libby during this time.

I also talked to a social social worker involved in Libby's case who agreed to be interviewed anonymously.

I asked her directly if she saw any signs of suicidal behavior in Libby.

She said no.

I've spent a lot of time asking Libby's friends and family about how she seemed in the few months before her death.

And to be very clear, There's no one way a person acts when they're suicidal.

They might make plans for the future, or not, appear in good spirits, or not confide in others, or not.

And so, I don't want to put too much stock in these impressions, but by and large, they echoed the points made by Colleen that Libby was being challenged and pushed, but that she was embracing it.

determined to come out stronger with her son.

She started jumping through all the hoops.

She was like,

I know what I need to do now, you know.

She acted like she was just ready to move on.

Like the last messages that I have with her that she has sent me was her asking if she could possibly come and move in with me and her come work with me where I was working at because I was making a lot of money.

All she wanted to do was clean up and get away from him, stay clean, keep her rights with her son.

I watched her progress and try to get better there at the end, for real, and I thought she was on a good road to it personally.

On the next episode of what happened to Lippy Caswell, we zero in on the last week of Libby's life.

I was like, why don't you just come home?

We could tell him you're not here.

She just kept saying like, no, I can't do that.

You don't understand what would happen.

If I stay here, he would know I'm here and it's not safe for you and it's not safe for Zabe.

Libby looked at me and said, said, Nathan,

I don't think I feel safe with Devin anymore.

Like,

I don't know.

Something just seems off right now.

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

Episodes are edited by Jeremy Thall and Carl Cadel.

Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.

For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Katrina Norvell, with our supervising producer, Carl Cadel.

Fact-checking by Maya Shukri, archival material courtesy of KSHB 41 News.

Our theme song is written by Aaron Kaufman and performed by Aaron Kaufman and Elizabeth Wolf.

Original music by Aaron Kaufman with additional music by Jeremy Thal.

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 what happened to Libby at gmail.com.

Thanks so much for listening.

This is an iHeart podcast.