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Welcome fellow True Crime Enthusiast to today's case File Unbreakable Courage, fighting the Enemy alone. Caitlyn Babbs Story,
1 75 year old male between Lane Road and Fox Patch Road, repeating, welcome to Body of Crime, your Go-to True Crime podcast where we plunge headfirst into the gripping world of criminal mysteries. Join your host, Jose Medina, crystal Garcia, and Alicia Anaya as we deliver the full stories immersing you in the heart of each case with spine chilling cases, in-depth analysis, captivating interviews, and a comprehensive examination of the evidence.
Embark on a thrilling journey with us as we explore bone chilling cases from around the globe. Whether you're a seasoned, true crime enthusiast or a fresh face in the genre, we guarantee to keep you on the edge of your seat. So put on your detective hat, grab your notepad, and get ready to dive into the thrilling world of body of crime.
If you've never heard Caitlyn's story, brace yourself because what you're about to hear is something no parent ever wants their child or children to experience. Caitlyn's injustice was thrust into the spotlight when her abuser, a convicted rapist and registered sex offender, committed a murder suicide that left at least two minor girls, sexually assaulted, and seven people dead.
The kicker, his last message was sent to Kaitlyn. I did exactly what I promised you I would do when I got out. I got a marketing job making great money, and was being advanced. Been there two years now and made a great life like I promised I would do with you. Now it's all gone. I told you I wouldn't go back.
This is all on you for continuing this. The Oklahoma Justice system, a broken system that had already dragged Caitlyn's case out more than 2000 days, just shy of five and a half years burning through at least five District attorneys repeatedly re-victimized Kaitlyn with every handoff of her case. The district attorney's handling Kaitlyn's case failed her.
The judges presiding over Kaitlyn's case failed her. The justice system failed her. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections failed her and her abuser's family failed her. Caitlyn was left to fight the enemy alone, but her victimization does not define her or who she is. You will learn about the real Caitlyn today and why she is truly a survivor and an advocate for justice and change.
29 million. That's how many reports of suspected child exploitation are received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children annually. That is over half a million reports per week. 18%. That's the percentage of child sexual abuse material content that stems from online enticement, 25%.
That's the percentage of family, friends, and neighbors who produce child sexual abuse material content, 18%. That's the percentage of parents who produce child sexual abuse material content. When Kaitlyn's case became an all access spectacle, people said some very cruel things because of their ignorance and lack of understanding.
Women are groomed, men are groomed, children are groomed. Though research has shown risk factors that may increase the potential for exposure to sexual abuse, sexual abuse knows no bounds. When a photo or a video is distributed, it stretches far beyond a single incident of abuse resulting in trauma that bleeds into adulthood.
The offenders are generally someone that they know and trust. Caitlin's abuser, like many others, used grooming tactics to normalize sexual contact and encourage secrecy. If this seems unfathomable to you, Remember those offender statistics
and welcome to the Body of Crime podcast, and we appreciate Caitlyn, that you chose to share your story with us. We know that you could have shared this with any other number of podcasts, so we really appreciate you choosing to share your story with us, and we want to tell your story and share your truth with our audience and and with the world.
Yeah. Welcome Caitlin. Thank you guys. So where did you grow up? We always start at the beginning. We always start with where you grew up.
So I was born in Edmond, Oklahoma, and whenever my parents, whenever I was two, I moved to a small town in North Texas and that's, that's where I grew up. So I spent most of my childhood years was there. Did you like Oklahoma or Texas better? Well, I was too, so I don't know
When you're two is like, everything is great. When you were living in North Texas, I, I'm assuming that's where you began, like elementary school. And did, did you stay there into middle school? Yes, I did. I stayed there until middle school, until the eighth grade. Okay. And then at that point I actually moved to Norman, Oklahoma to live with my grandparents and I started high school there.
When you were gonna school in elementary school, um, how was that for you? Like what was that experience like for you all throughout elementary school and middle school? I did fairly well. I was a pretty smart kid in elementary school, I believe from the beginning of kindergarten I took all gifted and talented classes.
So you were really smart. Yeah, I was teacher's, I was kid I in trouble. Never did anything. Did you do any type of sports or anything like that or any hobbies? No. Sports. Um, I wasn't very athletic. My very last year in Texas, since the eighth grade in middle school I did cheerlead. That is the extent of my sports history.
I wasn't very talented in those areas. I did a lot of reading and I liked to play the guitar, listen to music, things like that. Do you sing? Yeah.
That's awesome. How was cheerleading for you? How'd you like that? I enjoyed it. That's the first time I'd ever done anything on a team. So it was a new experience, you know, kinda have to be friends or you know, close to people who may not already know or, you know, trust. You have to form a type of connection with them, so I enjoyed it.
When you got to Oklahoma and you started school in Norman, how did you like that school? Was that a good experience for you? High school, starting high school in Norman was very different because I grew up in such a small town and Norman itself has multiple high schools just for the city of Norman. So it was definitely a change.
Uh, there were so many kids. And the quality of education there is very poor. It's, you know, I had some classes actually in high school that didn't even have a teacher. Wow. Um, they would just put a video on in the room and then leave during that period. Yes. I promise you. He actually, day one handed us all of the quizzes that the state said was required to us for the of the year and told, do all of them and just give them by the end of the year, that's all that you need to do.
And I maybe saw her three times. Wow. Yeah. That's crazy. I've never heard of that. Yeah. And you know, the textbooks that they would give us, you could tell were close to 10 years old. I mean, they wouldn't have front or back covers.
It's sad, but it's the fears of, you know, the Oklahoma school system. There's just no funding that goes there, so you really don't get the, the experience that you should when you're trying to learn. Yeah, it was definitely a change. How was it making friends in high school? It was hard. You know, I was,
No, anybody there and everybody else seemed to already have their circles of friends. I would say for probably the first year and a half of going to high school there, I actually sat on the floor in sort of like the hallway that led into the lunch room area for the first year and a half and had eight lunch on the floor alone.
Nobody, not even one person would even stop to talk to me. Wow. Would you consider yourself an outgoing person or were you kind of like more introverted? Yeah, I would probably consider myself introverted more so shy maybe, or reserved. I, it takes me a while to open up to and you know, be able to be myself and you know who I truly am.
So if someone's talking to me for the very first time, I may not come off as my genuine self. Right. That makes sense. So at what point did you meet McFadden? Was it when you were in high school? Yes, I was a sophomore high school. That's the very first time that I had communicated with him. And how did that take place?
He actually sent a text message to my cell phone. That's, that's the very first interaction that we ever had. I know that we've talked before, I didn't realize that you had been at the high school for almost a year and a half before you even had a conversation with McFadden. And when you were saying like, I didn't have any friends, I didn't realize it would had been that long of a time period where you're isolated and you're pretty lonely.
Like that's a really long time to be live somewhere without any friends. I didn't realize you were a sophomore. Yeah. Texas. Yeah. And visit, you know, just like spend the weekend with me. But other than that it was difficult for me for sure. And how old were you at that point in time? I would've been 16. 16.
So we know that, that when McFadden originally reached out to you, he was actually reaching out to somebody else named Shannon, I believe. Had he messaged you several times before? Maybe you answered or was it just i, I know that you were getting a bunch of different messages for somebody else cuz it was a new number for you.
What kind of made you want to even answer him back? I guess, I dunno. And I've thought about it before myself. You know, what made me respond?
Just, Hey, you know, this is Jessie. How are, how are you doing? And I guess it had just been over this period of time, so many messages I had gotten and it was pretty late at night, you know, late in the evening. So I just decided to text back. I, I don't believe that number had ever texted me before or called me.
That was the first time that I knew of. I know that when, cuz I did look up that phone number. I was just curious to know who the person was that had the phone. And I know that some of the things that came up for that person were kind of weird. And you're talking about the phone that Kaitlyn had? The phone number?
The phone number, yeah. Yeah, that Kaitlyn. Okay. I was able to find her, she passed away, I wanna say like, in April of 2020. But something interesting that came up when I put her phone number in was some stuff came up, like some escort type stuff, like escort business type stuff. Just kind of strange. So it makes it interesting that he, of all numbers like that, he reached out to that phone number and then he gets Caitlin on the other end of that phone number that no longer belongs to Shannon.
And the reason I thought about that, cuz one of the things that I was thinking about when I heard that he had just reached out randomly was, did he get the telephone number from another inmate? Because he had a tendency to go through people's stuff and get contacts from other people. So I was thinking, well maybe somebody had that telephone number in prison and he saw it somewhere and then that's why he reached out, you know, later on than when we found out that it was this person's previous number.
Then that made a lot more sense because he probably was reaching out to Shannon and inadvertently connected with Kaitlyn. So in the beginning of that communication, it sounds like it was very normal, you know, like, Hey, how are you doing? At what point did you kind of feel like maybe I wanted to know how that conversation just kind of evolved.
Can you tell us about like how that, let's say that first week of communication between you and McFadden the first week, I mean of course it started off normal that very first night. Yeah. Um, I responded, this isn't Shannon, who are you? You know, why are you texting this number? And I believe he had said that she was a friend.
He asked who I was and I told him my name and it was kinda just meeting, talking,
asking where.
And general things about each other. I did ask him how old that he was, and he did tell me, and I believe at the time he was 31 or 32. Yeah. And he did ask me how old I was during this first text message conversation that night. And I told him that I was 16. And his reaction was he was acting as if he didn't believe me.
He was like, I, what I want you to do is write my name down on a piece of paper and hold it up next to your face and take a picture. And you know, at the time it just seemed like another stranger who had just met another stranger by communicating via texting. And they just wanted to make sure that I was a real person and not, you know, who knows, somebody pranking them or you know, somebody completely different than what I had described myself to be.
Um, so I did it and I believe I also sent him a picture of my, at the time it would've been Myer's Permit. Yeah. Drive. So he knew from day one then how old you were and you knew how old he was. Yes. Did you feel weird? Were you thinking like, this is a 30 year old? Like what was your, your thought initially?
Yes, of course there was that feeling of it being uncomfortable. Honestly, in my head, it was an interaction that I was having with somebody who I was never gonna have another interaction with again. Right. So like I knew what, what all of this was gonna end to be, and you know, that was kinda my frame of mind or my, you know, where my Headspace was at the time.
And it felt nice to have somebody who was talking to me and who was interested in knowing about me. Right. At that point where you were connecting with Jesse and you guys were starting to communicate prior to that, had you been in any other relationships prior? I had a boyfriend whenever I was like, maybe 13.
That's not a real boyfriend, I imagine. You know, that's just like movies and popcorn first kiss type of deal. But no, I never had a serious boyfriend, you know?
I hadn't never had that, those type of experiences before. Yeah. I think that's important to understand, but you've never been in a relationship before. You are very isolated and probably a little depressed because you aren't socializing and, and then here comes this guy who's showing you some interest and originally it starts off very innocent and it's just a conversation between two strangers.
Yeah. And there's been plenty of times where someone has text me and I'll respond as well. I've done that before so I can understand how it can easily happen and where you disconnect with someone and then it's real easy to kick off because you don't, you're not in person. It's easier to not be shy. Yeah.
That's kind of like when you get catfished online. Yeah. Kind of like that. I was catfished, Caitlin. Really? Caitlin, she's a, this, this guy you hear had a picture posted with hair and green eyes and the guy I met was bald with a brown eyes.
It was, it was a old picture.
Oh, okay. Totally understand how that can happen. So your first week is very innocent and friendly and just getting really to know each other, but you're sharing personal information about yourself and he's sharing personal information about himself. And so at some point there's some type of a connection there and some type of emotional investment between you and and McFadden.
And how did that begin to escalate from just friends and just wanting to know each other to then it becoming a little bit more romantic or more emotional? How did it become more emotional? Really, unfortunately, the first request I got from him for me to send him explicit photos of myself was the same night that I had initially answered his text message.
You know, I know that blows people's minds that I just, I, I didn't know that I was talking to a monster. It was just somebody behind a screen I, I didn't understand and I didn't wanna comply. I know I told him several times, no, or, you know, tried to push it off and we would continue the conversation and he would ask.
Eventually, and I, I did send him photos of myself. How long were you guys in your conversation before he took it there? Maybe, I mean, probably four hours. And in four hours you can have a pretty lengthy conversation. Yeah. So you can really learn a lot about each other. Did he tell you like where he was at because we know he was in prison, like where he was from, any of that?
Yeah. He asked where I was from nor and asked where, and told Lexington or lived in the caller, but there was no indication of him being incarcerated or that was texting from prison. I received photos from mm-hmm. That night. So had no idea. Yeah. Before he asked for, for that photo, did he ask for like normal photos?
I know he asked for the one originally where he had you hold up the paper, but like, did he have any requests prior to that before he asked for that type of photo? Yeah. Pictures of, of me just what I looked like, uh, normal. Right. You know, that doesn't come off as strange, especially for a young girl. When you've been talking for a few hours, you're not thinking anything of it.
There's actually a show on Netflix called Push. And it goes through a series of things where it shows you with a grown adult how when you're getting somebody to do something and you're slowly escalating what you're asking them to do, eventually they do it. You know, like they start small and then they ask you to do something bigger and then bigger.
And that's kind of how it starts. It's a perfect example of grooming because one of the methods of persuasion is consistency. When you ask someone to do something small and they do it, you ask 'em to do something that's maybe a little bit, you know, bigger than that. Like for example, if I say, Hey, hand me that piece of paper and you hand it to me and then I say, Hey, can you go out to my car and and bring me something from my trunk?
You're probably gonna go do it cuz you've already done something for me. It's more likely that you'll go out there and do that as well. And then the higher you escalate that, the more and more the person is feeling responsible to do what you're asking them to do. And it seems like McFadden was good at this.
He was good at at getting you to do small things and then escalating that and then escalating his emotion when you don't follow through as well. So it's a little scary for sure. After that first night, like what did he try to tell you to get you to see him as being somebody that you wanted to continue talking to or anything of that nature?
He was.
It seemed like he genuinely cared about the type of person I was and learning more about me. And so he asked questions that were personal and in depth questions, you know, wasn't just surface area stuff that was meaningful conversations. And he also told me things about himself, you know, that were also meaningful and deep.
We had, uh, many conversations like that almost every night, just like connecting with each other. He seemed normal and I liked the idea of somebody who was showing me attention and showing me that they cared about me and that they wanted to talk to me. You guys were talking for, was it like a couple weeks before it became a little bit more romantic or was it pretty early on?
Probably pretty early on. I think after that first night and he was able to get me to comply with a request that he probably thought was reach. Yeah. Cause it was, I think that he, he wasn't the type to hold back. Yeah. So, um, he was bold. He was bold. Yeah. I'm sure there were parts of the conversation that were romantic and like I said, saying, you know, telling I beautiful and saying things that were.
Loving and comforting. And so yes, there were sort of, you know, talks of as if you were in a relationship with that person that, yeah, that's how he would communicate with me during the rest of that first weekend and time went on. And did you share with anybody else about this relationship or is this something that you kept pretty much to yourself or is this something that you shared with maybe some of your friends from north Texas and did he want you to keep it a secret?
I definitely, from my grandparents about around the
Kylie, she's my best friend in high school and I was hesitant about saying anything to her about him. He actually asked me to or encouraged me to, he wanted her to know that he was in my life and in what way he was in my life. And also to be honest with her and share about the fact that he was incarcerated.
And how did that make you feel that he wanted you to share about his existence and your in your relationship? I feel like it just validated my feelings, made it feel more real. You know, that it wasn't just person who texting. This friend that knows about it, you know? And then through her I meet other people and they become, you know, close friends and tell them, and it made it more of a factor in my life when I brought it from the phone into the real world.
Right. That makes a lot of sense. And that's also a manipulation in terms of encouraging you to be honest and truthful and that the purpose is to add substance to the relationship and to say, Hey, I want you to be honest and I want you to, in that act you feel that other person is also being honest. So it causes you to trust them more.
Cuz it's not like, Hey, I want you to keep hiding this. If he would've said that, you would've been a little bit like skeptical about it and been like, oh, why am I a secret? And am I doing something wrong? By putting it out into the universe and putting it out into real life now it feels right. It feels like it's okay and it feels like it's a real relationship.
That's true. That makes a lot of sense actually. At what point did he come out and tell you that he was in prison? And how did that conversation go? It would've been early on, but not right away, I would say. And not within the first week. I mean, maybe after a week to two weeks of talking to him. This guy never sent me a picture of himself.
You know, maybe he did, but he would say it's an old picture. Um, was he 10?
I didn't even think of that. I didn't even think of like, you know, when you guys share pictures back and forth. I didn't even think of it. That's so funny. But you know, I never seen a picture of them that was recent and he wasn't able to talk on the phone and the communication wasn't consistent. You know, during the day I would hear from him at all, maybe here and there at times, but it wasn't ever anything like it was in the evening.
What would he tell you he was doing during the day? I'm sure he just said he was working, but I don't remember exactly what he said. That became a point in which it made me start to be unsure. I had been extremely open and honest and truthful and yes', holding up sign of name, my face
information, you know, he was started know is, you know, what is hiding from.
I message from and like, Hey, there's something I need to tell you, but I don't wanna tell you. I'm afraid of what is gonna, and I was like, why? You know, what, what do you tell me? And was like, well, I don't want you to leave. You know, I don't wanna scare you away at this point. Are you thinking, oh no, he's married.
Yeah, that was probably the worst case scenario that I had. Yeah. In my head, or actually I'm a 62 year old man that lives in Alaska. I mean, it was really my 60 year esmo,
no idea at gotta
said. And that's how he had been communicating with me the whole time was from prison. And I know that I asked him why, and he told me half truth. He did tell me why he was incarcerated and what for, uh, the way in which he explained it. You know, I later on found out that wasn't the truth, but he did tell me it was for rape.
How did he explain that to you? You know, had shared with me his life until that point, and you know that he had been using drugs and he had said that they were at a party together and that they had started to have sex and it seemed fine and then all of a sudden that the girl decided that she didn't wanna anymore and that she wanted him to stop, and yet he said that he complied.
And overall that he said it was consensual, I guess after she left, after she went home then. Then he found out that, you know, she had made this report and at that age, I'm sure you don't know about all the different things that you can go in and look at to like fact check his story. So you're probably just taking him at his word, right?
Yeah. I would say it's easy to take him at his word because he's being vulnerable. It sounds like he's telling you the truth. Why would he lie about raping somebody? It almost feels like he's giving you a half truth and he's just dressing it up and making it look nice. I'm not a bad guy. I had a bad situation and it's a misunderstanding.
How did that make you feel? Were you thinking in that moment? God dang it. I wish he was married. Wish that was the big news. Yeah, I definitely was not in any way expecting. No idea. There was nothing that could have ever prepared me for him to say that. That was scary. I felt scared. I've had thoughts of, wow, I told this person where I live and they know what I look like.
Was definitely scared. There was a period of time after he told me actually, that I, I didn't respond to him. I didn't text him back. The intentions of never communicating with him again. How long did you go before you did communicate back with him again and what caused you to give him that second chance?
It was probably a few days, two to three days, and throughout that time period, he was still texting me even though I wasn't responding and they were, things seemed very and genuine, you know, that he really liked me and he didn't want me to leave. He just wanted to talk to, he said, can talk about this. You, you can ask questions that you want.
I'll tell you anything you wanna know, telling me, you know, that I was. Sweetest and that I was so beautiful and basically telling me everything I wanna hear. He knew at this point was the moment that I was either gonna leave and never come back, or he was going be able back in and that, you know, after that point it was gonna be hard for me to walk away.
It was the point of no return. Right. Cause he was able to do everything he had done up to that point and I was still gonna come back. And he knew that, I mean, he had it in the bag, right. So he was giving it his all, everything he could possibly say, you know, that he could see himself, you know, marrying me or having a relationship with me and just everything.
Yeah. I just gave in and I sent him a text message and I know that we talked about his charge and you know, I'm sure I asked him some more questions, but it just kept on going from that day, after that day, how did the relationship evolve? Did it become more intense? Did it stay about the same or how did it evolve?
Yeah, it gradually became more, I mean, it went from, felt like gradually for me, but. Pretty aggressive, you know, as far as the timeframe in which things escalated. So, you know, it went from, I want you, you know, take your shirt off and take a picture to being fully naked. Or even videos, everything that you could imagine eventually he asked for.
And it was a similar situation to the very first time. I would say, you know, I don't wanna do that. That sounds embarrassing or Makes me feel uncomfortable or, cause I was shy kid,
you know? And having never had those experiences with anybody else, it was a lot. And he would have to convince me that he was very good with comforting me and consoling me, comforting those fears that to make me feel as if I could trust him. And that to make me feel like it was something that I wanted, I would give in.
And then, you know, the next three or four requests I would give in easier and easier and easier until it just became habit of him requesting sexual things from me. And of course, at some point there, some hesitation.
And everything. So there were times that I didn't wanna, but you couldn't tell him? No. And at this point, I'm assuming like you've fallen in love with this guy at this point, and you're thinking like, we're gonna get married. Like, you're thinking that you guys have this permanent future. I'd be careful with saying that.
I, I think what she fell in love with was the concept of him. Right? Yeah. Because really she doesn't know him at this point. No. She knows what he wants her to know at this point. Right. Is that kind of how you felt? Yeah. I believe probably within the first month we were telling each other that we loved each other.
I definitely felt like I loved him and I felt like he loved me and cared about me in that same way. You know, to me, he was somebody that came to me when I needed somebody and when I was alone. So, yeah, I, I had very strong feelings for him. I, I didn't realize that, you know, although he might have had those feelings for me as well.
It wasn't with as pure of intentions as mine. Were your friend that you told about him, did she know like his age, did she know he was in prison? Did she know any of that information at the time? Yeah. You know, moved to where Call.
He was very controlling. So anytime he called, I was supposed to answer the phone, you know, around or not. And on the phone in front of her there times that I'm sure talked to other, honestly. And you know, she actually was at that point in her life for the very first time, a foster kid. So he knew that she wasn't gonna run home, tell mom and dad about Caitlyn at school.
So he didn't hold back as far as wanting to, you know, wanting me to share information with her and also about him being a part of not only my life, but our friendship. Do you think there was some kind of motive behind that? Yes, I do. I believe that I p it progressed to where at some point he was actually requesting that I do things with her sexually and not just do them, but of course he wanted to either watch it or for me to record it.
And that was the very last thing that I just was, Nope, you know, I'm just, you're crazy. There's no way. And I'm sure that he even suggested things to her about it as well. Um, you know, just trying to manipulate us both into doing it even though we both, of course were uncomfortable with that if we said no.
There was also another instance with a friend of mine from middle school actually, that I've been communicating with, and we would just text me and her. And since he had access to certain parts of my phone, he knew about her and wanted speak to
requested
picture.
So basically what was doing was he was using you as a networking opportunity to connect with all your friends, right. And you said he was monitoring your phone, so he probably had access to all your phone numbers. Yeah. Um, he had a, an app downloaded on my phone that he requested I downloaded, you know, cause he was very jealous.
You know, I kinda chalked it up, the idea he's in there and he has no idea what I'm doing out here. And that's where his trust or jealousy issues stem from. But he requested that I download it and walked me through how to do it. And he had access to that app as well. And it allowed him to see my phone, to my understanding, it allowed him to see my phone on his phone.
So he was able to see contacts, my location, pictures, phone numbers, all of my apps, what apps they were, any notifications that I got. I mean, anything and everything, he could see it. I would even think that with something like that, that you could access like the camera and the speaker and be able to hear conversations actually kind of creepy.
Yeah. But I think it's important to understand that this is her first major relationship. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And also you're learning cuz you're a child still, so you're learning how to be in a relationship and you're thinking, well maybe this is normal. You know, like she said, like he's in prison. Yeah.
And so he's sitting there thinking, what am I doing? You know, so she's rationalizing it in her mind like anybody would. I'm gonna do this for him so that he trusts me. Like I'm gonna reinforce that trust. Right. And the other thing is, you have no comparison. Like you can't go, oh, this is way different than this because there's no other comparison Right.
To this relationship yet. When did the relationship escalate to something that you didn't like, where you felt like this may be abusive? At what point did that start to feel like something was wrong? Maybe around six months I would get sort of mixed emotions about the whole thing. Being unsure about him being able to see my phone and all this information, you know, and he would question about things if he were to see things, you know, who is this?
Those sorts of questions. I, at one point he suspicious because I had school job, I worked for Walmart after school, and I would always call him at a certain point and I had stopped calling him at that particular time, and he became certain that I was seeing somebody else or talking to somebody and he sent someone my job, my after school job.
I know for how long I, period just know. There came a point in which, you know, I got on the phone with him and he started telling me things that only I would know. You know, he had hired someone new in this particular time and I was training him just the basics on how to do the job that we did, which was minimal stuff.
But we worked in the same department and I guess whoever this person is had had seen us interacting with each other. And Jesse was actually able to tell me what his name was, what he looked like was a rough visual. He was a ginger. So I remember him specifically saying that, um, that he did know his name.
We had to name tag, but he said that they were friends of his and he had put them there to see if they, if I was doing something wrong, could catch me. And so there was a lot of suspicion and jealousy and, and trust issues cause ok, now you know, you've seen you talking to this guy, you must be, you know, who knows what else you're doing.
Right. Um, and not only the fact that he's been someone to stalk me without my knowledge, there were definitely times cause I knew that it wasn't good. Yeah. And we'd get into arguments about. Did that scare you? Yeah, that was scary. Guess just the unknown, you know, I don't know who these people are. Does he really know who these people are?
Does he fully trust these people? I didn't know. And throughout the entire relationship up to that point, he had pushed me so much. There were moments that I would doubt myself if I actually trusted him. All of the sweet things and the long text messages and just being romantic and overly sexual just makes you kind of just past it.
I guess it, it doesn't feel as significant as it should. I think it's also part of the grooming process as well. One of the tactics for making someone vulnerable for control is to separate them from everybody else. When you're isolated, it's easier to control you cuz there's no one there to say, Hey, this is wrong.
It's a tactic that a lot of abusers use to isolate their victims so that they can further abuse them without anybody coming to their rescue or anybody being able to step in. And it sounds like Jesse was really good at separating people and isolating them and making them be alone just with him and doing exactly what he says to do.
You were at about six months where you began to feel uncomfortable. At what point does the cat get outta the bag and how does that play out? He had actually at some point requested that I open a PO box, and I had a friend who I met through the after school job who was over 18. And, you know, he had thought that this whole plan that, you know, I was supposed to tell her, you know, that I wanted it for some other reason and have her open the PO box so that he could write letters to me.
And, um, on that particular day, I had gone to school and left. I guess I just wasn't thinking, you know, that's the, those are things that I typically would, that I hid. Um, but I wasn't thinking about it. And I left it, I think it was fallen on the floor, but my grandmother had come into my room while I was at school and found it.
And as soon as they found the letter, they contacted the appointment Department of Corrections. I mean, I even had it still in the envelope, so had his name on it and his inmate number, and where he was sending the letter, which prison he was sending the letter from, called.
At this point, how long had you guys been together? I dunno. Crystal probably knows that better than I do. That's probably true. Crystal, how long were they together at this point? Talking January 1st, 2016? Yeah. Yeah. 16. It was reported sometime in October. I can't remember the exact. October 24th. October 24th.
Yeah. Okay. You said from January to October, so that's almost a year. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's a very long time to be in a romantic relationship. I would assume that when your grandparents found the letter and at some point they confronted you, how did they feel? Were they scared for you? Were they angry with you?
What was their emotion? They were worried. Yeah. They were scared and didn't understand. It was such crazy revelation for them to have not known that this has been going on for an extended period of time. And, you know, that I had actually fallen in love with this person. They were worried for me and, um, you know, asking questions.
Of course they told me that they didn't want me to communicate with him anymore. How'd that make you feel? It was hard to, that I was extremely, he.
It felt like he was in every part of my life and I felt extremely connected to him. So that was pretty devastating to picture, you know, that he, he wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna be able to talk to him anymore, that he wasn't gonna be around. Is this somebody that you've connected with over, you know, 10 months?
Like, that's, that's a long time. Yeah. It was sad. And, and actually at that same moment that she was able to get me like the whole court document for both of the cases. And so I was able to read like what he did to Crystal. Oh. At that point you knew what had happened? Yeah. Cause she showed me. Um, how did that make you feel?
I was hurt. I think it was just like a, a double hurt. Cause I felt like someone was being taken away from me and then I loved them. And then I also felt betrayed cause he had lied. He didn't even tell me that the grand larceny charge was for his grandfather, you know, about the theft. But you didn't know who he had robbed.
Right. And if he did tell me it wasn't anybody significant, but that was,
Both his grandparents and just, so there was also that aspect. You know, he loved this person so much and he hurt them like that. It was all around upsetting then I had and tell him that my grandma we're not allowed talk anymore and you know that she's found out about this and I didn't know that she had filed the report.
Then first they had to be the conversation regarding the fact that he had lied. And how did he explain that? Like what did he try to tell you about all of that? He just said that essentially it was, I hate to use the same word that everybody's using. Trying think of something else. Understanding, yeah.
Don't wanna say, I felt disgusting saying it as well. I was like, was oopsie.
That word has took it to the meaning of its own. Gosh. He, he essentially told me that their version of events were different. You know, that this is what truly happened, you know, that they was consensual and then afterwards she decided it wasn't, but apparently to her that she had came up with story that wasn't true, but that his story was still true.
Told right. So he is, he's gaslighting you. Her version of it was untrue. Yes. Yeah. He's gaslighting you. He's telling you, no, you're crazy. You gotta believe me. I'm telling you the truth. My story is, is the right story. You know me. Yeah. Right. And as far as the grand ny he was, he got emotional about it and told me how much he regrets doing it, that afterwards, that it hurt him so badly that he could do that to his grandfather and that he regretted it and that, you know, he made amends and, you know, he, he very seemed remorseful that he had done it.
And at this point, the bigger thing in the room was the fact that my grandparents had just found out and he was worried. But of course he didn't wanna miss that opportunity to reassure my doubt, the crystal thing and about everything I know now that was, would've been extremely important in that moment was potentially be exposed and get in trouble.
So being able to convince me of what the truth was and also seeming so remorseful and so, you know, it even brought him to tears, how much regret he had for doing that. Was like a lie and also extreme honesty. Yeah. And, um, him being vulnerable like that and, and opening up and telling me the complete truth just sort of solidified it for him.
Right. He gave you the complete truth about his grandfather and a complete lie about Crystal at the point in time where he's boohooing and telling you that he's so sorry that he did that to somebody that he cares about. He never paid a dollar back to his grandfather. Not, not a penny, but that doesn't mean he didn't regret it.
That probably was a real emotion. Now, whether he made amends or not, I don't know, maybe his grandfather forgave him, but I really feel like in Caitlin's explanation of what he did, it's a perfect manipulation. I'm gonna give you the whole truth here and I'm gonna give you the whole lie here and you know you're gonna go with what makes you feel good.
Yes. He's using enough truth to convince her. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Again, that's a manipulation tactic and he's skilled at it. He's good at it. Plus it, it serves him well because, you know, again, like her grandparents have reported him, which obviously at that point he doesn't know that, but it's to his benefit that you continue to go along with what you know, his version is.
Caitlin, you, did you feel angry at your grand grandparents at this point? I wasn't initially yet. I felt embarrassed of.
Uh, humiliation type feeling. But, um, I didn't feel that way right away after talking to him and letting him know that they knew. He advised me that I was to stand up to them and tell them that we were in love and that we were gonna be together, and that he wanted to marry me and that this was a real relationship.
And he, you know, even said to them that he said he know that he take care of me and that he me very much, I mean, he would even say things for me to tell them on his behalf and, you know, basically just drilled into me over and over again that I was to I, or I guess to make her believe or you make her go along with it, that it was ok, get her compliant.
And just, I guess turning her head and not saying anything or going through with anything. And that's a tactic that's worked for him for many years. It worked on the bus when he was 16, he did it with his wife, and now he's doing it in this situation as well. He's saying, Hey, go and do this and tell him that it's about our love.
You gotta fight for our love. So it's a serial pattern.
Shared it with him and then he advised me what I was to do. From there, I complied and told her everything and she, you know, met my energy with resistance. She was not OK with it, regardless of anything that I said. Right. You know, there was not gonna be anything that was gonna change her mind, that it was wrong, that he was not a good person.
She refused to believe, you know, regardless if me saying it or him saying it, she knew he was not a good person. And, and yeah, it created some feelings of anger and resentment. We didn't get along very well, to say the least. It definitely damaged our relationship severely for a while. Prior to that, what was your relationship like?
Were you guys really close prior to that? Extremely close. Yeah. I loved her. I don't, I don't have a lot of family. All I have is my mom and my grandparents. That's it. So, and she had always been an extremely important part of my life and I'd always been extremely close to her. And of course, in this period of time, like you guys have been talking for 10 months, you've really gotten to know each other.
You've shared a bunch of personal information. You've been sending him things. Did he send you things too? Yes, he did. Were they the same level of like, I guess value? Yes. I dunno that I'd say value, but like, were they the same level of the type of like pictures and videos that, that you were sending him?
Oh, oh yes. I mean, they were, and they weren't, I mean, I was out here and the free world where I could do anything at any time that I wanted. You know, I, I had free will, I had freedom and so yes, he did send me things, but several times, multiple times, more times than I could even to remember videos and pictures.
But it couldn't have ever been anywhere close to the extent that he asked of me. Did you guys ever do anything over the phone? Was there ever anything like during your conversations at night?
Yeah, that's when a majority of it happened. So, you know, at night he was able to use the phone and he didn't have to worry as much about someone catching him or seeing him cause it was dark. The lights were off. And, um, we would talk at night and yes, they were very explicit sexual conversations that we had.
Most of the time those were over the phone. Just a phone call. There was a point in time at which he had gotten a smartphone. So initially he had a flip phone, uh, but there was point in time that he had gotten a smartphone. And uh, so we communicated or we would talk those nights through a video call and it was the, the same sort of sexually themed conversation, except he could see me at any point.
Did he become violent with you in any kind of way where you felt he was being violent? Maybe to some extent, yeah. I didn't have any knowledge that could have possibly allowed me to understand at what level of like, what would even be considered violent. Right. I didn't understand what could be considered violent, you know, sexual things versus maybe rough or aggressive, you know, I had no meter.
Yeah. As far as what was too far, what was too much. But at the time it felt like this was probably normal. You know, that the sexual conversations that we had and the aggressive, almost abusive nature of conversations that we had, I thought was,
I didn't understand until. Now being an adult and understanding that there are things that he liked and there are things that he said and there are things that he, you know, would ask of me that were way too far, as far as being aggressive to the point of violence. I think that's important to know because a lot of times people are under the assumption that everyone has their knowledge and their experience.
But when you take a child and you put them into a sexual environment where they have no exposure and no sense of what is normal versus what is not normal, it's hard for them to distinguish is this okay? Is this how it's supposed to be? Cuz you don't know, you don't have a point of reference. So I think we were at the point where your grandparents found out about it.
They filed a report and I think it goes a couple months before that report has impact on Jesse. What point did he figure it out that your grandparents had done anything? It had been a while. So after me standing up for myself and professing my love for him and, you know, all I was taking to defend him, um, she did given information, correct.
Filed a report. And so I did tell that and some time went past before anything came of it. They had confiscated referenced earlier and basically going through to find evidence of the crime that she says was committed in. So that, that took some time. I know right after the report was filed, they actually came and I don't know the appropriate words in prison term they call it shaking down yourself.
Basically. They searched him. Yeah. And all of his belongings and all of his property, you know, they, they turn everything upside down, they tear things apart, they go through everything. So he, he did experience that and then kind of nothing else for a while until they had all their evidence they thought that they needed and it was, you know, he was sentenced to to court.
So I know that the filing, it was September 29th, 2017, so in between October of 2016 and now September, 2017, you guys are still communicating back and forth? Yes. As frequently a lot of things.
About getting caught. The nature of the conversation was a little more guarded as well. It was definitely still sexual. I don't think that that was something that as long as he had a cell phone that he was gonna be able to control himself with. But sort of the dynamic of things changed once he had that worry.
In the back of his head. Was he still pretty lovey and dovey and like romantic and was that still happening or, or did you see a decrease there in terms of the show of affection? I feel like at that point when it first been reported and he knew that, you know, charges were gonna be filed as far as being romantic, I dunno if I'd use the word romantic, but he became more serious and his language about our relationships.
You know, he had even said that, you know, saying that he wanted to get married and talking about things for the future. I feel like some of that energy kinda shifted into he was trying to make plans. Right. You know, or like start growing those seeds as far as, you know, this isn't just right here and now, this is going to be forever.
Right. And here's how, here's how I want that. So of course at this point he knows that he'll be up for early release cuz he'll reach his 85% within a couple years at this point. So he's gonna be a little bit more conscious of getting in trouble at this point in time. Is this when he first wanted you to communicate with his family or had you already been communicating with his family?
No, I had not until the report was filed up until that point I contact with any of those relatives was. But I did start communicating with his mother, LaDonna upon his request pretty frequently. Uh, he urged that it was important since we were gonna get married, that I have a relationship with her and show her the type of person I'm And she knew how old you were, right?
She did, yes, he did tell her When she met with you for the first time, wasn't that to bring you a ring? Yes. At a stage in the investigation he got transferred to Oklahoma State Penitentiary and that is in the Callister where she lives. So he had told me that he had bought it. I if he told prior to, you know, being sent.
We had dinner and she even drove me past the penitentiary her, but she did give me, it was an engagement ring. It had a, it had a box and, and everything. And so then after that, of course, now I'm sure you didn't know this back then, but I know that she met with you again and the timing of it had to do with kind of how the case was going.
Did she have any reason at that point in time as far as why she was meeting you or was it more of just a, Hey, let's meet and hang out, just for you to kind of connect? That's what it seemed like to me. Um, there was some music sort of festival. They played instruments and kinda like an arts fair sort of thing that she was really in.
And I'm sure he encouraged her, but you know, I was under the impression he had encouraged her to take me along with her. And so that was sort of the reasoning for me meeting her the second time. It sounds like you had a pretty decent relationship with LaDonna. Was your vibe from her, like friendly and motherly and, and caring?
Yeah, she was very friendly, very caring. It felt nice.
Now you guys have something in common. Right. I mean, I had always never just known him and then he knew about my life. But you know, I had never been involved in any aspect of his life. Of course, I wasn't able to, but it felt good to have somebody who knew him, uh, to supported us and cared about me and cared about him as well.
You know, it felt like that one person who was in my corner and who was rooting for me, and I didn't have to worry about what she thought or, you know, what she might say or how she might feel. You know, I knew that he had her support. When did that change? Well, we know he was at OSP for about six months, and during the time that he was at osp, I think there was a, a little bit of a break in communication between you and McFadden, or the communication was a lot less than it used to be at that point.
Was there a change going on in you in terms of how you viewed your relationship with McFadden? Yeah. You know, while he was at osp, they were intercepting the letters and so it was rare that I really heard from him a lot of the letters. I'm assuming they threw them away. Um, but they have no access to obviously cell phones, but, but not even.
Like, uh, they call them wall phones, but that's typically how you communicate in prison is calling from the wall phone, which we even did, you know, when he wasn't at Oklahoma State Penitentiary, we, we communicated via other prison phones if he didn't have a phone or couldn't use his for whatever reason.
But all of that doubt, not only that, but he now realized that it was very serious. And, you know, I mean that's, that's where death row is in Oklahoma for Oklahoma Prison, uh, is in that prison. So it's pretty terrifying. And he came from a minimum security, so he was scared. And um, you know why he was scared, right?
He's no longer in a prison that's practically all sex offenders. He's now in a prison where a sex offender is gonna be a target. Yeah. I'm sure, you know, at the time I didn't even think about it that way. I think there was also a fear of what was happening with your case against him and what was happening with your relationship as well.
I think there were a lot of things going on at that point that he had no control over. Right. And control's a big thing. So a big thing. Yeah. So now he has no control. Now he's kind of at the mercy of the, the prison, but now he's using his mom to help him. He's trying, but I, I don't think it has the same effect for Caitlin.
Did you find some type of freedom there, or did you find like that that separation allowed you to begin pulling yourself away from the power that he had over you? Yeah, absolutely. Leading up to that, he had actually told me that he wanted me to deliver a statement basically requesting the Koge County Courthouse to dismiss the charges.
And this must have been prior to him being taken to maximum security, but he had actually written this letter himself and sent it to me. And so anytime I happened to communicate with him, it was constant pressure as far as, you know, he wanted me to print this off, he wanted me to sign it at the bottom and then go have it notarized my notary and then give it to the courthouse.
I didn't want to do that. I mean, every part of that letter from beginning to the end was a lie. He was telling me to sign my name to it and have someone notarize it and submit it as if it's the truth. I mean, when it wasn't, you know, I made it very clear that I was uncomfortable with that. And was he
wast.
I did eventually comply. Not right away. It took some time, but after I complied to that, there was some part of me that felt like free because I, I had done everything that he asked. Right. So like, now you can leave me alone. Right. You know, I felt like this huge burden had just been lifted off of me. I mean, I've been going through so much the last six to eight months, you know?
Yeah. And just the trauma of all of it. And I felt like that was all lifted off my shoulders. And at this time, are you still in school? No. During this time period of him being put under investigation and then, you know, moved to Oklahoma State Penitentiary, close to the end of my junior year is where I would've been.
And I dropped out high school. Just the constant stress and the fact that I was having to, you know, basically fight with my grandmother who I loved. But, you know, I was living in that house and, um, there's definitely some contention and knowing that she knew everything that was going to happen, you know, about the trial, and she had all this information and that I have him on the other end of the phone, you know, scared about what's gonna happen.
It was just a lot of pressure and anxiety and just, I dropped out and.
What a tough, tough position to be in for yourself to be 17 and to be pulled into this, this mess. Yeah. Just really because you have one side telling you, hey, this is the right thing that like what he's doing is wrong. And then you've got him saying, Hey, this is really messed up what you're doing to me, it's pulling her like, you know, she's in the middle of it.
It's tough. It, this is a tough situation if you've never experienced anything like this. It's really hard because I even know, hearing all the things that your grandmother's doing, like she's doing all the right things. Yeah. She's trying to do the right thing and she's doing her best to help protect you.
But in your state, you can't even see it. You can't really see the, the forest from inside the trees. Like, it's really hard to see what the reality is. And obviously now that you're an adult, looking back, it's obvious now, but when you're that child, it's almost impossible. And that's why I asked you if there was any anger, because how could you not be in your mind, you were in love and you were with the person that you wanted to marry and have a family with, and here's your, your family's trying to stop you from that and you don't understand their perspective yet.
You know, and you won't get that until you become an adult and can look back. When you went to Texas, what kind of situation did that put you in? At this point, when I moved to Texas, I moved, there's.
I think it was maybe three months I was homeless. I didn't have anywhere to go and I couldn't get an apartment cause I wasn't 18. I got my G as soon as I dropped out and like before I even turned 18, I got my GED and I was basically going from couch to couch. I, I lived with my father for a brief period of time, and then there was a mother, the girl that I went to school with, you know, back in middle school and said I could sleep there.
I did that until I was 18 and I got a job, job and immediately got an apartment so that I had a place to live. There was so much anger still towards my grandmother, I feel like more so at this point. It was anger because of all of the stress and all of the, yeah. Turmoil it brought through my life, you know?
And I didn't need that. It was, it was a lot. And so, yeah, I was kinda on my own. So that would've been 2018 for you? Yes. So then how does life change for you once you turn 18 and you get your own apartment and during this time when you're on your own and you're starting to put your life together, what's the relationship with McFadden at this point?
Or is there one at all throughout.
Well, I, I realized the relief that the separation brought me and it made me kinda start to question whether or not I truly still wanted to be in that relationship. If, if the idea of him not being able to have that control and contact over me 24 7, and also me moving away from the state that he's in when I'm about to turn 18, like if those things, or thinking of those ideas brought me relief, I started to question whether or not I even wanted to do it at all.
And so I was scared of him. I knew that he could be controlling and, and manipulative and that he didn't take no for an answer. And I, so I chose to slowly just tap off the communication that we had together. You know, I go from calling, you know, I talked to him on the phone, from prison phone, you know, maybe twice a day, and then it was like once a day, and then it was like maybe every other day, which every other day throughout the rest of our relationship, that never happened.
You know, it was constant, constant. He, he always had to be talking to me. And so, you know, by the time it got to where I'd go three, once a. It got scary there for a while. You know, there were two instances in which he threatened me. You know, he put me letters on two separate occasions. One was because I had blocked his phone number on my phone from calling me, because even if I only answered once a week, he would still call every single time that they would open up the phone for phone time.
Sure. So if that was three times a day, he would call me three times a day every week, you know, and I'm not responding letters. He's writing, wasn't
had text, text his mother, but requested that I talk to him, un unblocked him and talked to him. And I spoken to him Then, then read the letter that he had also sent me and was basically just saying that, you know, oh, you've, you've blocked me again and you know, you had promised me that you are going to cooperate and you told me that you loved me and you wanted to be with me.
And then, you know, he mentioned something about holding up each end of the bargain. Apparently I was, I was not holding up my end of what I was told to do. Right. You know, because I was walking away. You know, he would give me, if you don't call me by this certain time on this certain day, I have no choice other than to tell my lawyer that we wanna go in these certain angles to try to make you look like you're a bad person, essentially, is what he was saying.
But, you know, things like just making up stuff. Right. You know? Yeah. Saying that I found him, you know, that I was reaching out, trying to find older men to date somehow I was like an older man predator
on him. Cause I would like this inclination to like older men. And so that's how this all came about, even though I was under, you know, and, um, you know, other things like, uh, they're going to subpoena you to court and if you don't court, they're gonna find you and they're gonna arrest you and then they're gonna take you to court and, you know, saying that then you're gonna have to face me in trial and you know, we're gonna be there in the same room together.
It was just, you know, trying to make me intimidated. Did you know that he was like five foot tall and hundred 20 pounds? Yeah. I know. At some in time, yes. Learned that.
19. You're like, dude, you know? Yeah, I know. There was another occasion and this was the end of me even giving him an inch, you know, because clearly if he, if he got an inch, he'd taken a mile. Uh, but I had answered a call from him after the threatening letter about the subpoena, and if you don't call me and you know, all of that, uh, he called me one day and, and I answered, said that he had sent people to my apartment where I was living at the time, my first apartment.
And that did these people, I believe he said friends, that they had seen a man leaving my apartment. And he was able to describe to me what he looked like, what his ethnicity was, that he drove a truck, what color it was. And it was a GNC Sierra. He was able to give the exact details of what happened, and this was not information that anybody would've known except for me.
At this point, he's not tracking your phone anymore, and so this is genuine. Someone was there. Yeah. I know that you had said that back in 2016 that he had sent you a book about the dark web and then showed you how to use the dark web. Did you, at any point in time, so like when this is occurring, because now you've started to get a little bit older, are you thinking anything, like, who are these friends that he has because he's a slimy guy, like I'm, I'm realizing this now.
Are you thinking like, did you do something with my pictures, with my video? Is that even part of what you're thinking at this point in time? No, that thought didn't even cross my mind. I'm gonna be with you until maybe he,
the idea that he could have shared my pictures, you know, maybe after a year or two of being separated from him, probably whenever I was gonna go to trial and get on the stand. That's about the time that I, that I realized that, but actually realizing that he very well could have taken them and put them on the dark web.
But after May 1st is probably the first time I actually had that thought. I spent, the last few years, I haven't really been spent processing my trauma. I was just getting over it, you know, just getting outta it and trying get space. I felt like I was okay. I wasn't really point yet of into everything that happened and how it made me and you know, yet, When he's sending people by, you know where you live and he shouldn't know where you live.
Are you scared at this point? Like, yeah. I texted his mother and I, and I said, Jessie just called me and he said that he's been sending people to my apartment. And you know, that he saw, I remember telling her, you know, I don't care if it's a man, I don't care if it's a female care, if it's a dog he's telling disappear.
I was like, complied,
you know, I'm to complying information, information so that I can protect not only my safety, but those around me. You know, I, I was clarified. And so she actually tells you, hold on, let her think about it. Right? Yeah. She tells me, you know, not to do it. And she tells you, just do this favor for me one last time.
Right. It'll just tear her up if he gets more time. Yeah. So I think after I texted her that she called him, she talked to him on the phone and he told her that wasn't true. You know, a misunderstanding. I never said that. A misunderstanding, man. That's like a huge piece of his vocabulary. Yeah, I know.
I, I needed to, to again, that he could explain himself, you know, I'm sure she had told him that, you know, Caitlin said she's gonna district attorney, you're her. And that she did, she encouraged not to say anything. And she said, I could just ask this, just this one last thing. If you could do just this one last favor for me.
She said, I would be so torn up if he got more time, and that she really just wanted her son home. I trusted her. Yeah. I trusted her. I thought she was my friend. I thought that she was on my side looking out for us and me, you know, I, I think that's really one of the last big conversations I ever really had with either of them.
Yeah. And you know, at this point it's crazy because you're being threatened. You're being groomed by a mom and a son, and he's threatening you and she's on the other side pushing you. And this, you know, your case was filed September 29th, 2017. So at this point, like you've been dealing with this, along with everything that's happening in your life, and this is a lot, this is more than anyone can handle, and you're doing it like a rockstar, which is really impressive because you've put your life together.
You got a job, you got an apartment, you're doing it all on your own, and you're still dealing with the pressure of McFadden trying to force you to do things that he wants you to do. And his mom is, Also trying to prod you in that direction as well. I know you said 2019 you were living your best life in 2019.
Can you tell me what was different with what was going on with you in 2019 that made things kind of like start falling into place for you? I, at that point, seriously dating the guy I been seeing. And, uh, he helped me. He knew a friend that knew a lady that owned a company and it was, um, a medical job, but he got me a job through her and I was making pretty good money for being 19 years old and, you know, only having a GED and I was taking some courses, but, you know, didn't have a degree.
And I was able to move from the apartment in North Texas. So one that team Jesse was sending people to, and I moved closer to the city and I had found friends there. And I mean, it felt like I put everything back together finally, you know, that it seemed like things were gonna be okay and you did it by yourself.
You did it alone. Yeah, I was very determined. I, I always knew what I wanted and I, and I just went for it. And so during all this, you know, up until this point, you know, you went through a lot of different das. You, you had the same judge throughout the process. How did you feel like your case was being handled and how did you feel like, like the DA or the state was representing you?
Were they advocating for you? Were they supporting you up until the point that they were ready to have the trial? I didn't really hear much, but of course I expressed UNC cooperation. But by the time that it was ready to go to trial, I was over 18 and willing to testify. And the district attorney at the time, she was very involved and kept me updated on things that were happening and the reason for any delays and, you know, calling to check on me.
And even whenever I had to give, you know, my statement of the events, it has to be recorded, you know, an audio recording. But she FaceTimed me and talked to me about it and I felt like she cared. That was really impactful. But after she left, I don't really think the way. How do you feel like your case was handled after she was left?
I felt like it wasn't, it wasn't handled right. It wasn't being handled there. There wasn't anybody that cared of everybody that touched your case. She was the only one. And it was during 2019, and I know that she had taken your case on sometime in 2017, but in 2019 something interesting happened, she was trying to accelerate the jury trial and this was because she was pending leaving and going to be a federal prosecutor.
So during 2019, shes trying to close this out and prosecute this case before she leaves the office. And during that year, a couple things occur. She gets a couple awards and it almost looks like it's a little bit of a tug of war, of trying to continue to kick the can and kick the can because obviously we know that it ends up just being kicked and kicked, you know, for over five years.
So during that process, are you, you know, you've gotten to 2019, you know, you're dating, you're working, you know you're taking classes. Is this period of time stressful for you? Yeah, it was stressful because it, I had completely done away with that part of my life. You know, I just was living, if didn't happen to me.
It definitely brought up a lot of emotion for me. Having to think about it again and having to go over what happened again. And, um, it was definitely stressful. And, you know, I'm, I have a whole life and I'm five hours away. So they say they wanna have a trial. Okay, well now I have to my boss know, explain to my boss, uh, that I have to go to court and they're gonna make an odd face at me, which they have every right.
You know, look at me weirdly, if I tell them that I have to go to court. You have to tell your employer that there is a feeling of obligation to explain. So that, I mean, at least that's how I felt. Now. I, I mean, I was still young, no experience in dealing with going to court or even what the proper way to go about this love.
But I always felt, you know, it was uncomfortable. And then you have to have the uncomfortable conversation of, well, I was sexually abused when, you know, whenever I was a child, they just, you know, then all of a sudden it's like they feel sorry for you and, you know, they pity you. And I didn't like that.
Yeah. Didn't like, you know, having to go through it again and again and call and, well, I know I'd ask for off, but I don't need it anymore. They've moved it another three months, another three again, and. So, yeah, it was stressful cause of just reliving what was happening to me and they kept pushing it. So I kept pushing it in my brain.
It just kept dragging it right in my head about everything that had happened and just thing, it was over my head times and, you know, the, the trial was pushed again for a final time just before she left office and it was pushed pretty far out. And then I believe a couple more times before hands ends up getting out.
But it was pushed twice into like January and then it was, and then, uh, from January it was pushed into like June, but then Covid hit and then it was pushed again. So, yeah, it was really, it, it just kept getting pushed. And I know what you mean because in your mind you're ready to get past this, but you can't get past it until after the trial happens, right.
So it was like that finish line keeps getting moved further and further and further away, you know, and you never really get to it, so you never get to put it behind you. It's always kind of lurking there in the shadows popping its head up every couple months. So what was your situation during Covid? I was in the medical field, so I was working until, unfortunately, even before Covid the office I was working for, struggling financially.
But then after my job,
We saw elderly people and elderly people weren't leaving the house, and they certainly didn't know how to do telehealth. That was in our pill battle, trying to explain to an 85 year old how to use their phone to connect us on app and then log with a password that's attached to an email and on, yeah, I mean it was, um, the work cut down significantly and he just wasn't able keep up with it and closed.
And so for a long period, maybe months, didn't have a job. And at that point, since I wasn't getting any updates from the court, I didn't, I wasn't really thinking about it too much. I'd been, you know, gone. I was able to, my brain was able to relax. I kinda like go of that, uh, because they never contacted me as far as, okay, you know, the trial is gonna be this and here's the reason why we've moved it and, and all of that.
Um, I think there was a long period of time throughout Covid I didn't hear. It was easier to push outta my head. And we know that towards the end of the year, that McFadden's released on October 30th, 2020 and you're not notified. You don't find out until you see a popup on, you know, Facebook saying, Hey, this might be somebody you might know and this sends you into like a fight or flight mode to figure out what's going on.
Cuz you're confused thinking, Hey is he out? And ultimately you end up finding out that they've released him with no probation, no bail. And he was actually ordered to report immediately to Muskogee, which he didn't do. And that's what they ended up being able to get a bench warrant for. So he gets arrested and coincidentally he gets a arrested on the same day as his attorney passes away.
And as we found him on Facebook or I found him Yeah, reach district attorneys office. And that he was didn't know. No, it appeared. It appeared. They didn't know. And when I say we, me and my grandma, we both kinda worked together but called them, called back and they said was C, the district attorney said that they were into and that something didn't seem right and
waited six. He ever gave us a call back and, uh, I don't believe it was him, it was somebody else, Jesse, Jesse Ridge. That's the only time I ever spoke to Jesse Ridge. She called and said that yes, we were right, that they had looked into it and that they had dropped the, but that a warrant was being put out for his arrest.
I guess somewhere along the lines she said that that must have gotten missed and that they dropped the ball and she apologized and said, as of right now, he has a warrant out for his arrest. And I mean, me knowing how they work Yeah. And their efficiency to handle things was appropriate. Timelines. Yeah. I mean, I hung up the phone, probably called my grandma and my mom and I called the McAllister Police Department.
I mean, I knew in mc and basically said, you know, hi, spoke to the sheriff's office, my name is Caitlin. I'm calling to let you know that there is a sex offender living at this address and gave them the address and that he is pending two more sex crimes against a child and he has a warrant, his arrest.
And the sheriff said, thanks information, I'll call.
And he said, we'll probably have them by the end of the day's, what he said. And I was like, great. Perfect. And, uh, I think I had checked Oscn and yeah. By that next day, he had, he had been arrested. Were you still at home or did, had, had you left the house? I was home at my apartment. I, yeah, I was terrified. I, it was probably up until that point, like one of the scariest moments, you know, scared boyfriend, hadactually left, was out town, found, found all this out, and I was terrified.
I would walk around my apartment several times a day and just make sure that everything was locked, that all the blinds were closed. I was terrified to take my dog outside to the bathroom. Day or night, didn't matter. I was very, very scared. I was suffering an extreme amount of anxiety. I bitten my nails all the way down to the point where my nail beds were exposed and my fingers were like bleeding.
Wow. I couldn't even really use my hands. I was having panic attacks. I was terrified at my apartment.
Um, I went out and I bought camera to put outside my door and bought pepper spray to put on my key chain. And it was just a constant hyper awareness of every single thing that was going on around me. You know, if I was walking down the steps to leave the house, I was looking at every single person outside who's sitting in a car, who's not in a car, what cars are here?
Check the license plate, make sure it says Texas. Move on to the next one. You know, it was, it was constant. And not even for just that period, it was like that the whole time he was released. Constantly feared for my safety. You're not just worried about McFadden, you're worried about anybody who he might be sending there too.
So it's not like you're gonna recognize the threat. And so here you are, he's been released, which he honestly never should have been released. And you're having to be ooc, you're having to be the da, you're having to be the sheriff. Like you're doing all these jobs for them. Yeah. You know, as the victim.
Someone's gotta do it all while being terrified. Yeah. It's, you know, what makes me the most sad is that we've gone over a span of years from 2016 all the way to 2020, and since 2017, you've been terrified. You've constantly been in a state of extreme fear, and I can't imagine being terrified for that long.
And you know, the impact that that's gotta have on your, on your psyche has, has gotta be intense. Caitlyn. I know, I know there's been some changes, but, so before everything occurred on May 1st, 2023, had you already had to seek therapy over all of this? Yes, I had actually saw therapist even when he were still communicating near the end, before moved.
Texas
disorder. Also acute depression, well, ptsd, constantly being in a state of fight or flight for as many years as I was, it causes so much intense, severe anxiety in situations that you wouldn't even expect. It was a constant part of my life. It affected me mentally and emotionally and also physically. I have a lot of physical illnesses that have came from that PTSD and the anxiety from it.
Just constantly having anxiety suffers a lot of issues with my stomach. Cause over all this,
It makes it hard to lay down at night to go to sleep cause of how sick I feel in my stomach. And that's still something that I self. So your life's been completely altered, even still with experiencing those things. You were still doing everything that you could to ensure that the right thing happened as far as he was concerned.
How did all of this impact your dating life? It made it extremely difficult for a number of reasons. Number one, because I so hard with anxiety and makes it hard to even leave the house, just fear of walking out the front door. But, you know, even beyond that, the idea of meeting somebody new, I dunno, this person, they're a stranger.
And I've learned that, you know, that could be bad, that things could happen that I don't even realize could happen. It's made me very hesitant to form connections with men. You know, I get anxiety or worried even just at the thought of a man being sexually interested in me, to the point where I put off going on dates.
I, I don't wanna do any of it because I'm terrified at the idea that they might wanna have sex.
Having relationships Cause I'm not only intimacy, but even emotional intimacy seems trust has been horribly violated. Yes, it's stressful. I try to avoid it. I feel as if, I dunno what's gonna happen, you know, where I have to let myself be this vulnerable person that I was in that moment back whenever I was a child and someone took advantage of it.
And I'm always afraid that that could happen again
when you're supposed to have your trial. So this last trial that was scheduled, were you excited? Were you thinking like, finally this is gonna be it, we're gonna go do this trial and it's gonna be done? It's hard for me to think about the word excited, you know, given everything that happened. But I was ready, I was prepared to wake that morning to drive, you know, I packed my back.
I was relieved a little bit scared because of everything I was gonna have to do, you know, get on the stand. And he was probably going to be there. I I, they both were him, him and Holly gonna have to go over evidence of, you know, where they showed me, I guess, of. My abuse. That was scary. And then of course, all the anxiety that I have now because of everything he put me through, and now I'm leaving the house and I'm getting in my car and I'm driving, you know, all these hours to meet these people that I don't know is scary, but I was so ready to do it.
I just wanted it to be over with. You know, I was tired of carrying around this burden and I also knew that he had been reaching out to minors mine, and so I was motivated to do everything that I could to have him put away. You were preparing for war. You were ready to go to war with McFadden, and I know in your mind you were thinking, once we get out of this trial, he'll be back in prison and I'll have some type of security at that point, did you have that confidence with all this pushing that he would actually even go to prison?
Honestly, yeah, I did because there had been so much deliberation. We had been in the trial stage for what, two and a half years. And so I would go back and forth with district attorneys and then his lawyers saying, you know, they would offer him, okay, they offered him 20 years and then his lawyer would come back and say, well, he'll do 10, but all probation.
Wow. I can assure you. And there were some talks of five years in and five years out on probation, strict probation for sex offenders. But nonetheless, you know, he wasn't going to do more than five years in prison. And this trial is what was gonna get him more than five years in prison. If I stood on the stand and if I told my story he could get life, that was a jump that I was willing to take.
And when I decided to make that jump, it was cause I thought that he was gonna be put away for good. And what a brave thing to do to head into that alone with the intention of putting him away. You could have very easily just accepted a plea and said like, let me just get this over with. Right. Give him the five years.
I'm gonna go about my way. And, but no, you were ready to fight that out. And that's amazing and that's incredible that you did that. Thank you. It's, it's hard to, sometimes it's hard to feel, uh, proud of myself for doing that these days. I know that I was doing it cause I had the right intention. So the night before trial, you get a message from McFadden.
When you got that message, were you thinking, this is another one of his like, to mess with me, to push me to, before the trial? Or were you thinking there may be some, some type of real threat? Is your brain even going in that direction? I. No, from just reading it. I mean, that's the only communication I've gotten from him.
And, you know, significant amount of time at this point. I initially was confused cause I, you know, read it. I read it again, I read it again and you know, I didn't fully understand when he says this is all on you, you know, my first thought was, I guess my only thought because it all happened so quickly, you know, it was the night before and the next morning.
And you know, my thought in that moment time was that, you know, he had listed all of the great things he was doing, uh, with his marketing job. And I thought maybe he was referencing that, that I was, now it's all gone. Like now you're taking my life away from me. You know, I was able to do all these things and now they're all gone.
You know, my job and I wife and you know, now I'm not gonna have any of those things anymore cause you're taking them away from me. I thought he was trying to make me feel bad and manipulating me to try to have a sort of conversation with him in which then he was gonna try to manipulate and or threaten me to not testify.
So then at this point you forward the message to the da and what does the DA say back to you? Yes. So got the messages pretty late, fingers around eight and I saw later pop request, Facebook messenger and maybe about minutes reading it. But screenshot everything sent, did, did write to him. Just wanted to let you know.
Jesse has reached out to me on Facebook. You know, he sent me these messages and, uh, wanna say, you know, an hour or two past and never called, but he texted and said, that's all he said. So then at what point after you send him the messages, do you become concerned? You know, we wake up the next morning and the trial is supposed to be that day, and he calls me at 10 30 and tells me 10:30 AM on the first, tells me that Jesse's lawyer asked for a continuance based the fact that during this entire time, Jesse's retained as a lawyer requested, which is everything.
The reason why. Gonna that. And, uh, they were request warned of it. The prior
hung called me back maybe 15 minutes later, uh, no more than 30 minutes later. And he said, I don't wanna scare you, but was just informed. Or they just put out a news alert for two girls and OK County and he said their ages and that they were last seen with Jesse. Then it all starts to make sense in my brain, you know, the message and, and everything.
And I also wanna mention, cause I didn't mention this in the phone call that morning, uh, when he had said that they were going push the trial due to lack of information, information, I brought up the text messages to him again during that phone call and I said, you did get the screenshots that I sent you last night, didn't you?
And he's like, said, screenshots. And I was like, yes. The screenshots about Jesse reaching out to me. And they're like, the silence. And then he's like, yes, yes, I did see those. Thank you. Sending them
violation of. Can't he be arrested now? Because he's contacted me, the victim that, I mean that he can't do that. Right? And he's like, he's like, yes, you're right. Know just again, job. I know he was just, you're right. I'm gonna call them right now and tell them that, you know, he had violated his bail and that they were going back on it, and that he had to go to jail.
At some point, one of the das shares with you over the phone that the phone that was taken, that had the pictures and video and everything with you in it, that is evidence that there was other underage girls on that phone. Did they ever, did any of the das ever tell you why none of that was introduced as evidence regardless of whether or not any of those girls wanted to be a witness?
No. It wasn't ever explained. And actually after that da, it was never mentioned again. Uh, she only mentioned it to me one time, one of the last conversations I had with her. But nobody else ever mentioned that there could be other girls that had been abused. So then the next message you get from the DA is what?
And he calls you right. Yes, he called me like 30 about the Amber Alert and didn't, was that for
put bolo so in case he was happening to be coming here, that someone would be on the lookout for the type of truck that they said. And I had gotten an Airbnb about an hour away from my, and I was driving there so that, you know, he wouldn't know where I was and that I was safe. Um, that was, it was on the, the way there that I got the phone call about what had happened.
That, you know, I felt like I just kept having to remind this guy that he had reached out to me and I was frustrated. To me that seemed important, you know, and I just, I kept like wrestling in my head with this and it just felt ridiculous that I even had to call him, you know, I would've assumed that this would've already happened, you know, where the.
Henrietta police Department would've called me and asked to talk to me and somehow, you know, try to make some sort of negotiation. I mean, if I was the last contact he made, and he has these girls and he knows where they're, I mean, I'm not a police officer or a district attorney, or a judge, or a sheriff.
Oh, but you have been, yeah, but in my experience doing all of those roles, I mean, that would've been my first inclination would've been to arrange some sort of like, like a rescue operation to try to communicate the information back and forth and make some sort of deal, you know, if you, you know, we'll, I'll drop everything if he gets them back, you know, uh, anything.
And I, you know, once again, call the district attorney and I'm like, I just can't get it out of my head that he sent me those messages last night. They mean something, you know, I didn't know it last time, but I know now they mean something, you know, I was like, can't you contact them and give them my number and tell them to call and said, yeah, I did morning.
Um, but they really didn't seem interested. Uh, once they realized you were outta state, they kinda just lost interest. Think they're just looking for people that they can sit down right now and talk to in person. So he's reached out to you and there's no concern that you can possibly reach back out to him and have a conversation to convince him that he's not in the situation, that he's thinking he's in.
Yep. They weren't concerned. It wasn't, uh, apparently they didn't think it was important. According to Larry Evers, the district attorney at the time, um, I said, regardless, can you please call them again and tell them, this is my cell phone number. You can call me right now. I'll answer. I pulled my car over, pulled off the highway, you know, probably 50 minutes away from where I was from my home, where I was going and to make this phone call.
And I said, I you to call them and tell them mean there, so be done. I didn't get it, you know, and I felt that something was just pushing me that you need to push them. That's why I made that phone call. And he said, ok, I'll talk to them and I'll give them your number. You know, hopefully they'll give you a call soon.
So now you're hostage, negotiator and your lead and investigator at this point in time, after hanging up that phone call, I got a call from Larry Edwards again about five minutes later, and he said, did you see the news? And I, I was pulling it up on my phone as the words were coming outta his mouth, you know, and I read it at the same time that he said it.
And, um,
that's, that's how I found out. It was awful. Awful. I felt guilty cause like the, the very last feeling that I had had prior to finding this out was feeling so frustrated with their inability to do anything right and that I was basically trying to force their hand to trying to make something happen. And so from gonna, that sort of mindset to everybody is gone.
And then knowing that he had texted me that I just cried for probably four hours. I was in that parking lot. Until I was able to call somebody and ask for help. I just kept thinking that I was,
I felt like I was saying sorry, because even though I tried so hard, it wasn't, I believe if everybody else that was involved in this investigation would've tried half as hard as you did, we probably would've had a different outcome. Yeah. The other feeling was anger. I would just cry and cry and then it would just be like, flash.
So pissed off. Yeah, so angry at the fact that they let this happen. Not only did they let me get abused, they left me my entire rest of what I could scrape together of my childhood and all of my life up to this point. Me feeling like I wasn't important and like what happened to didn't matter. They never let feel like victim and then him be, man, so that he could take all their life.
I was, I was, and I still am very angry. It's complete incompetence or just cruelty? I, I dunno which one. I honestly, probably both. I think the one thing that we could depend on throughout the whole case was that they would do the opposite of what they were supposed to do even when they were investigating the crime.
I'm not as close to this as, as you are Caitlyn, and it makes me angry. It's hard not to think that it's intentional. Caitlyn, what changes after all of this would you like to see happen? Many of them.
I think that the state of Oklahoma and their victim protection, their victim's laws that they have, I think that they need to be updated, changed, and they need to be enforced and taken seriously. I think this isn't the first incident and this won't be the last of something happening cause of their negligence.
You know, I think that they need to be thoroughly investigated. All of them, the judges, district attorney, the, the court clerk. I mean, something is wrong there. Hundred percent. I think that the state of Oklahoma should be held accountable. They did 100% and I guarantee you that this isn't the only case like yours.
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure there are more that we, that we just dunno about and they, they owe it to me and to the families of those children to explain all of the lies and how they messed up and in some way pay for what they did. Truly. That that's how I believe, um, whether it's losing their jobs or whether it's getting in trouble for things that they covered up or that they didn't do, that they did wrong, or that they're, you know, whether it's a monetary reason, they deserve to be held accountable in way.
And they're expecting not to be. And that makes sense, especially when you listen to the case and you see how quiet it's been for the last month. Like nothing. Which is not normal. No, it's not. It just screams corruption. And you know, one thing that's so sad to me is that in addition to Caitlyn, his first victim also wasn't notified when he was released, and she didn't find out until she saw the news about the deaths.
So one major thing that I think that they need to change is you shouldn't be allowed to leave the courtroom without signing a refusal in front of a judge and a notary to not be contacted as a victim. To me, it just seems like a basic victim's right to be notified when the person who harmed you is being released from prison.
You're the highest at risk at that point. It's crazy to me that the person that broke the law has more rights than the person who didn't. That makes me mad. What advice, Caitlyn, would you give young girls or boys who have been in your situation, or who currently are in the situation that you've been in, what would be your advice to them?
My advice would be to trust your gut feeling. And that if you never had that gut feeling and now you're in a situation where you feel like you can't get away, that it's ok and you don't have to feel like it's your fault and that you, you can get away from it. You're not going be stuck there forever, you know, to let somebody know.
And what would your advice for parents be? My advice would be to be cautious. Cause they're out there, like the one from your worst nightmares, they exist. And just to be cautious that there could be a chance potentially that your child could come in contact with these sorts of people and you know, to make sure that you created a safe and stable place around the idea of not only communication, but communication about sex and stability to where if something did happen that they maybe wasn't okay that they could, and that they could ask.
Or that they could, I think it feels easier,
you know,
educate what it might look like, but it might look like a normal person, but might be
concerning. They were to ever experience anything like that, that they could tell you and, you know, that they weren't gonna get in trouble, but that, that they would be safe and taken care of. That's really good advice. Yes, it resonates and it reminds me, um, in our interview with Crystal Strong, one of the things that she said is that that's how she raises her kids, so that she knows that they can bring anything to her.
And she, if she doesn't know about it, she can't help them. Very, very good advice. Your story is so incredible. The courage that you have is, I can't even begin to tell you how many lives you're gonna touch with your story, because there's girls out there who are going through exactly what you went through right now who need to hear your message.
And the fact that you're willing to share it is just incredible.
So thank you.
It took me a while. It, here, you know, I wasn't ever made to feel like I was a victim. I wasn't ever given the, the care that she would give a victim. So I didn't ever really view myself like that. I had taken a lot of growing to get here, and I wish it, I wish that it wasn't because of everything that happened, but.
You've been very strong in everything that you've done. And what's most impressive is that you've always done it by yourself. You've always, you know, been alone in the struggle of doing whatever it is that you needed to do. And you've always been the one fighting even for everyone else when people aren't doing the right thing and trying to get them to do the right thing and be held accountable.
And so Crystal says you're strong. It takes strength to be vulnerable and to share your story. It takes strength to face a monster like McFadden in court when you don't have to. It takes strength to be willing to expose yourself in terms of trying to negotiate some type of a recovery of the children when they were missing.
All that takes strength, and that's one thing that you've displayed over and over again is just strength. Even when you were 17, you dropped outta school and you went and got your job and got an apartment. Like that takes strength to do those things. And that's one common, common thing that in everything that you've done, you've been strong and you've been resilient.
Super resilient. And not just that, but despite everything that you've been going through in the process, like depression is one of the most debilitating illnesses that you can have because it can make you unable to get out of the bed, to leave the house. And you still fought through all of that, and that's extremely courageous.
Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Caitlyn.
Thank you.
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