Crime Junkie - MISSING: Katelin Akens

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

In December of 2015, Katelin was to board a plane from VA to AZ. She texted her mom that she made it to the airport and her phone was dying, so she would text later. But Katelin never made it on that flight and she has never been seen since. The investigation into her disappearance will make you question everything about Katelin's last day and by the end, you won't know who's account can be trusted. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-katelin-akens/    

Hi, Crime Junkies. Welcome back to another episode. I am your host, Rachel Flowers. No, you're not. That's not your name. I know, but did you see that review that called me Rachel Flowers? Of course I did. I thought that podcasters always lied when they said that they read every single review people post. They don't. But I read every, I read every single one. I'm so obsessed. And I also want to only go by Rachel Flowers now because I kind of love it. I can make that happen. So thank you to everyone who has been leaving us reviews. Like Britt said, it's what keeps us going every week. So please go on Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five star rating and a written review to get us to next week. We are trying really hard to get to 500 reviews and we would really appreciate it

if you guys would go on and help us. And thank you to everyone who came out to our first ever meetup this weekend. Oh my God, we had so much fun. There were so many more people than I ever thought would come. It was amazing meeting all of you and talking about true crime, talking about all the cases we've covered and the cases we're going to cover. I can't wait to keep doing this in new cities and meet even more of you. All right, Britt, it's super rare for me, but every so often, I find a case that when I'm researching it and putting the story together, I get full body chills. I know like that's your quote, full body chills, but it's super rare. I thought for a while my body chills were broken

a little because like maybe the podcast had ruined me or hardened me, but this case, full body chills. Are you ready? I guess I'm so excited. This is Caitlin Akin's story. She's a young girl growing up in Carolina County, Virginia, and she was like kind of punky, kind of alternative. She had some tattoos, a couple of piercings, and she would also do super fun things with her hair, like like change a bunch of colors or cut it really, really short. She would dye it blue, which like side note blue hair is like always been a fantasy of mine, but I feel like it's too, I know, I feel like it's too late in life though. I did blue hair and it was the best year of my life. It really was. Oh, you rocked blue hair. Yeah, I cut all my hair off and dyed

it blue. I identify with the victim already. Yeah, so she was just like absolutely fabulous. So she knew who she was and she was just like crushing it. She actually asked her mom if she could graduate from high school early because it just wasn't for her. Like she was smart, knew that dropping out just wasn't an option, but she just didn't want to do like the day-to-day grind. So when she was 15, she started taking classes to complete her junior year and her senior year simultaneously and girl graduated when she was 16. And so she started working and like getting on with her life. And during this whole time, Caitlin had a best friend growing up that lived just down the street from her named Amber. Her and Amber had been friends for years and they

were super close. Well, when these girls were like 11-12-ish, Amber's family had to move to Arizona, but a few thousand miles didn't get in between these girls' friendship and they stayed extremely close, talked every day. And as they got older, they actually found that their friendship was blossoming into more of a romance and they began a relationship. And as soon as Caitlin turned 18, she moved out to Arizona to be with Amber and they soon became engaged. Just like Caitlin stayed in touch with Amber when she moved, after Caitlin moves, she also stays in contact with her family in Virginia. Like crazy close, her mom and her sister said that it was unusual if Caitlin didn't call them each, like two or three times a day just to chat. At this point, Caitlin is 19

years old and while she's in Arizona, she decides that she wants to start her career as a beautician. Clearly, she has some talent. She's always doing crazy stuff to her hair and her friend's hair, but she wants to go to beauty school to really refine her skill and start doing other people's hair. She registers for beauty school, but they need a copy of her high school diploma, which is back in Virginia with her family. Well, win-win for her, her sister had actually just had a newborn baby, so Caitlin plans a trip back to Virginia to visit her new nephew, to visit her family, and then to get her high school diploma so she can start school. So on December 1st, 2015, Caitlin travels from Arizona to Virginia. She hangs out with her

family, gushes over her new baby nephew, and she even gets the opportunity to hang out with some old friends of hers. On Friday, December 4th, she visits these old friends from high school. They're two friends, a guy and a girl, and they're actually a couple now. And so they all hang out, they're playing cards, drinking, and she ends up crashing at their place because no one can drive home. And they drive her back to her mom's house early that morning, Saturday, December 5th. And that's the day that she has to fly home to Arizona. She sees her mom and her sister both that morning when she gets back, so she has a chance to say bye to everyone, to hang out with her nephew one more time. And everyone said that she was acting totally normal, she was in good

spirits, everything was fine. Well, later that morning, Caitlin has to get a ride from someone else to the airport because it's about 50 miles away from where her family's home is. Her flight isn't until 5.40pm, but her mom works that day. So before her mom leaves for work, and I've heard this was either at 9am or 11am, she drops Caitlin off at her ex-stepdad's house. And his name is James. James married Caitlin's mom when Caitlin was just seven years old, so he was really the only dad she ever knew. He was very involved in both her and her sister's lives when they were younger, but after Caitlin's mom and he divorced, he wasn't as close, but still he tried to be there for all the big events like Christmases, birthdays, stuff like that. He was like an uncle type.

Exactly. So not only was James useful in that he could get her to the airport when her mom couldn't, but it would also be really nice for her to see him and be a good chance for them to reconnect and catch up. Now James also has to work this Saturday, but his start time isn't until later in the day, like three o'clock. So he can take her to the airport, but he has to take her earlier than she would normally go, so he can be back in time for work. So several hours after Caitlin's mom drops Caitlin off at James's house, James sends Caitlin's mom, Lisa, a text message at exactly 152 that says he dropped her off. And Caitlin's mom replies to him, she just says thanks, and was the traffic bad, and he replies no. Eight minutes after this, at two o'clock,

Caitlin also sends a text to her mom saying, I'm at the airport, battery dying, so won't be able to text for a bit. Her mom replies, okay, let me know when you get on the plane. Just a few minutes after Caitlin sent that message to her mom, she sends a totally different message to her fiance, Amber, that says something's going on and she's waiting for a new flight. Amber thinks this is super cryptic and strange, so she actually reaches out to Caitlin's mom to ask her about this. Everyone's really concerned at this point because it doesn't feel right. They can't figure out what Caitlin would be doing or why she would be getting on her flight. No one can get a hold of her. She's not answering her phone or replying to their messages, even though they keep saying they're

worried about her and want her to contact them. Caitlin's mom calls James hoping maybe he can shed some light on what's going on since he's the one that dropped her off. Did he know if she had a change of plans? Did he wait around until she confirmed that the flight was okay and everything? Do we know any of that? Well, so we know something, but he did neither of those things. When her mom gets a hold of James, he actually says that he didn't drop her off at the airport. He dropped her off at Springfield Mall in front of JC Penney, which is a little bit of ways from the airport. And her mom's initially confused by this because that was never the plan, but James tried to reassure her. It was like one o'clock when he dropped her off and she would have had like

a four hour wait before her flight took off. So she said instead of just sitting at the airport doing nothing, she'd rather walk around the mall for a little bit and then she would catch the metro to the airport. But this didn't put her mom's mind at ease at all. It actually makes her more concerned because she said that she knew Caitlin had never rode the metro by herself before. She really didn't even know how. So she's a little bit pissed at James for not realizing this and just leaving her alone somewhere without any way to get to her flight on time and get home. So the family just keeps calling, calling, texting. And at 7.15 Caitlin's mom finally gets a very short reply from Caitlin. It was sent in two messages back to back. The first one said staying

with a friend. The second said need time alone. And at 7.15 her mom was actually in the car driving home from work. And as soon as she got these, she's immediately pulled over and tried to call her, but the call went straight to voicemail. So she basically sent these messages and then turned off her phone. She's really concerned for three reasons at this point. The first is that the text comes in at 7.15. Caitlin's flight was supposed to be at 5.40. So she knows for sure she hasn't gotten on the plane, but she has no idea where she is. She has no idea why she didn't get on the plane. And the second reason is Caitlin isn't picking up the phone. Like why? You obviously have your phone. You're sending me these text messages. You know I'm worried about you. You

can't even reply to my texts. Like just pick up the phone and tell me that at least everything's okay. You know what I mean? Like I can only imagine if she would have heard her voice, I would have put her at ease. Right. Yeah, totally. And the third reason is that the text Caitlin sent weren't how she normally writes. You know how like every person has their own flow? Like you, you blow up my phone with like one word at a time for 45 texts in a row that make a full sentence. And that's just like how you text. And I type as if I have no fingers and only people who know me long enough can actually interpret what I'm saying. Half the words are not real. Let's be clear. So like people do, they have very distinct whether it's how they use emojis, whether it's

capitalization, whether it's the flow. Well apparently Caitlin was not a string texter. She would write everything out in one big message and send it all at once. And she was a big emoji user. So this message that her mom got was two back to back, no emojis. And she said she knew right away that it wasn't normal Caitlin. So in her mind, I think all she's thinking at this point is Caitlin's not acting normal. But what people wonder later is, was it Caitlin writing these messages at all? Well, right before her mom got this message, Amber, her fiance also got another concerning message, but this one was through Facebook Messenger. And this one said that she couldn't come back because she had cheated on her. Again, even Amber said that this message

didn't look like the way Caitlin normally writes. And she was totally blindsided by this message. They hadn't been having problems. It didn't seem like something she would do. And if she had cheated on her, why not? A, show back up in Arizona. All of her stuff was there. Her life was there. And even if you didn't want to come back, I mean, at least call and like have this conversation. It was just all so weird. Caitlin's family is baffled by this because she seemed so normal that morning. Again, they, you know, with all this stuff going on, she's breaking up with her fiance. She's saying she doesn't want to come back. She's changing her life. And they're like, how? Why? When did this? Like this morning, she's playing with her nephew and everything's fine. Like it's been fine every

other day. And now she's literally like flipping her life upside down. And no one can explain why. So her mom calls the airline just to double check and make sure she never checked in, make sure she like used her ticket or didn't use her ticket or did she get on the plane? But the airline confirms she was never there. She never checked in. So her mom goes back to James to get the story one more time. And he says the exact same thing. I dropped her off at the mall to walk around. She never said anything about meeting anyone. She was just going to kill time. I gave her 20 bucks to catch the metro. Like, and that's it. Then I left. The family is full on freaking out at this point. Caitlin has never run away. She's never been super secretive. So all her family

can do is keep trying to reach her, keep trying or keep calling, keep texting. But every time their calls just go straight to voicemail. And this goes on all night into the next morning. My biggest fear is trying to find someone I love and their phone going straight to voicemail. Like I think about it every time I call someone I need or want to talk to. It's terrifying. I know this is why I'm so big on that if I go missing folder so I can like hack in and find their like iPhone right away and figure out the last place it pinged and get in my car because that would be the worst thing to me too is like just sitting there ringing like doing nothing. Like I just need to be going and I don't know. I would drive myself crazy overnight.

If it goes straight to voicemail, I'm like 911 is my next call. Honestly. Like I get so paranoid. Exactly. And so that that was exactly where Kalen's family went. They call police that morning and the police basically say there's nothing they can do. She's 19 years old. She well I mean and to be fair though she is an adult and all of her messages said she's an adult and they can't like like it's it's I know but like even there are cases when the police like just make assumptions but literally all of her messages were like I just need some time. I'm not getting on my plane. It's substantiated. Yeah. Like I'm an adult who's making this decision. Please give me some space. So Monday morning rolls around. This is two full days after she last was seen and her mom

can't take it anymore. She goes to the county police in her hometown because she knows that's the last place that she saw her daughter and she files a missing person report while she's filing it out. They're still telling her the same thing like she probably is just taking a break. She's probably with friends blah blah blah but Kalen's mom insists on filing this report anyways and literally while she is filling out this paperwork police get a strange report that comes in. They escort Kalen's mom to an interview room and they sit her down and they say there's something we found. They found Kalen's luggage in a drainage ditch on the side of the road. Totally normal because she was supposed to be on a plane. What? Right so that's not even the crazy part though.

She was last seen by James near this mall on the way to the airport. No. 50 miles away. Her luggage was found on the side of the road just a few miles from her hometown. Everything you thought was true is not. Did she like leave the airport and then come back and then something happened to her? I mean she was so close to home but she didn't make it home. Did she ever leave home? I mean a thousand questions running through their mind. When police collect her suitcase they found that a wheel had been broken and it looks as if someone had just threw the suitcase out of a moving vehicle. Her wallet was inside, her banking cards were inside, her phone charger and her toothbrush all in the bag. Only three things were missing. Her clothes, her phone,

and her high school diploma. So I think this gave family pause because she needed that diploma to get into school. So did she actually run away? They start having this conversation like in their own heads. If one of the biggest things she came back for, one of the things that she needed to start her life was this diploma and that's one of the things that's gone along with her, could she have like left on purpose? I mean maybe but she didn't take her toothbrush, she didn't take her cot. Like there's so much that she left behind. It seems like a rough way to start a new start. I know. I feel like this luggage, it contradicts like every story. What is leaving the luggage proof? To me, leaving the luggage is something you like would do to like set up foul play. You

know what I mean? To make people think that you're dead. But at the same time, the stuff she took didn't make sense for that. Right. Take your banking cards, take your ID for goodness sake. Like again, take your toothbrush. You don't need a toothbrush to like start your new identity. Like yeah, exactly. A toothbrush you can buy with less than three dollars cash and it will never be tracked to you. But it's your toothbrush and three dollars less cash you need to spend. At the same point though, if something sinister did happen, also why leave the suitcase? Because this suitcase does have her ID and her cards and all the stuff. You would think if something happened and she was supposed to be on a flight, the easiest thing to do would be to like not let

anyone find that and never know if maybe she took all of her stuff with her. But you're leaving on the side of the road where you know it's going to be found. Well with the discovery of her luggage and not her, even police begin to worry at this point and they do a helicopter search with infrared looking for her, looking for more of her stuff and they search like a 30 mile stretch near where her bag was found. But they come up with absolutely nothing. News outlets are picking up this story now and detectives start interviewing like everyone who she had contact with while she was in town. The main detective on the case is Detective Marshall and Detective Marshall wants to start with the last person who saw Caitlyn, which is James. And James story doesn't change at all.

Same thing, mall, metro, airport, that's it. He has not changed his story once. He repeats that he dropped her off early because he had to be at work and Detective Marshall brings up to James how Caitlyn's mom thought it was crazy that Caitlyn ride the metro because she never had before and she wouldn't know how. But James said it didn't even give him pause. Like she's an adult. She's not a child. She can figure it out. Like girl's a smart girl. So at this point, the detective and Caitlyn's family's best guess is that perhaps she planned to meet somebody at the mall or maybe she just ran into someone at the mall. And so they put in a subpoena to get the security footage from outside of the JCPenney where she was dropped off. Right after they request this footage,

something insane happens a few miles from where Caitlyn's luggage was found. The body of a young woman is found as well. She's got similar characteristics to Caitlyn about the same age, same height. So everyone is sure at this point, this is it. We found her. And I mean, you have to remember this is a small town stuff like this does not happen. Right. The body is found. It has to be the body of the girl that just went missing, right? Sure. Wrong. It turns out to be the body of a 21 year old girl named Heather. This puts everyone on even higher alert because naturally the first thought everyone's having is, Oh my God, we might have a serial killer. It happened again. Yeah. Yes. So detectives start trying to find anything they can to link Heather and Caitlyn

together. They're going through the car that Heather was found in looking for anything physical to place Caitlyn in that car. They're trying to make connections maybe between their friends, social circles, their social media, but there was absolutely zero connection there. People could not let go of this for a while. And for a long time after Heather died, they kept linking Heather's case to Caitlyn's case. And there was even an episode that disappeared on this. And when it ended, they were just like, Heather's case has never been solved. And so the speculation online is like through the roof. I'm sure. But just recently actually, Heather's case went to trial and someone was convicted of her murder. Turns out she was involved in some crazy love triangle. And it was

just all about jealousy. And it truly had nothing to do with Caitlyn. Like Heather was lured in her car, shot in the back of the head. It was all about loving the wrong person. And in the end, truly had nothing to do with it. So once police like, and obviously police know more than the public does, they ruled this out a couple of days in. And once they could eliminate that angle, Detective Marshall goes back to square one and retraces Caitlyn's movements while she was at home. He interviews the friends that she went out with the night before she went missing. And he finds out that she did get drunk and stay with them and may actually had a threesome. So she did cheat on her girlfriend that night, even though this is a big question mark because she wouldn't

respond to her fiance. The couple said that everyone regarded it the next morning. And Caitlyn seemed quiet and kind of despondent. But again, as soon as they dropped her off at her family's house, her family didn't see any of this. And they said she was totally fine. So you have to wonder like how heavily was it really weighing on her if she could play it off to her family. Police look into this couple though, and they don't have anything to hide. And while Caitlyn made a mistake with them, they wouldn't have any reason to do anything to harm her. But this at least explains her message to Amber. So they're slowly putting the pieces together. And they decide, All right, so we know she sent this. I cheated on you message through Facebook. We

know that it was her. Maybe there's more messages there. And they find another conversation to someone else earlier in the day that she disappeared, where she said, I don't want to be here and I don't want to be there, meaning I don't want to be here in Virginia, but I also don't want to go back to Arizona. So now police are back to wondering maybe she did run away. Maybe she wanted to get out of this engagement. And she was cheating on her fiance. She's telling people she doesn't want to go back. Maybe we had it right the first time. And she just walked away from her life. So police do some stakeouts of her friends houses or places that she's been known to go around town. Because remember, she said she was staying with a friend when she texted her mom, but no one gets a single

sight of her during all of these stakeouts. And at this point, we're two weeks out from her disappearance and police finally get her phone records. And this is also why you need your folder because it wouldn't take two weeks to get your phone records. And Brent, this is where when I was researching this story, my stomach just fell into my butt because police find that that two o'clock message she sent her mom saying that she was at the airport and her battery was dying was sent just five miles from where her luggage was found right near her hometown. What I know chills full body chills. I know. So police go back and then they get that security footage they requested because they're like wtf at this point. James says she's at the mall 50 miles away

at one o'clock when he leaves her and an hour later she's home like someone had to have picked her up right I mean if she's sending this at two o'clock he says he dropped her off at one o'clock who picked her up James gives them pictures of his Jeep so that they can try and spot it in the security footage and give them a place to start. Well, they go through hours of security footage there are two separate cameras that they're looking through and they never see Caitlyn they never see James no and they never see his Jeep. And what I can't figure out is like why would he give them a picture of his Jeep if he's got to know damn well that he is not going to be on there. So they do the same thing for the metro station and for the airport she was never at the mall

she was never at the airport and now police like you and I and like I'm sure everyone listening are super confused by James. They can't figure him out he's been super cooperative he answers all of their calls he's come in for interviews anytime they ask and then even provided that freaking picture of his car knowing his car is not going to show up. So they want to talk to him and confront him with all of this and they want to do it while he's hooked up to a polygraph and James agrees to this but this is right before Christmas so they end up scheduling the polygraph for December 29th and really police aren't really considering him a suspect yet they just know that what he's saying isn't totally making sense or they can't put the pieces together and they just need his help and so

no one sees any harm in waiting till after the holidays. Well Christmas comes and goes and then James calls in to say he's talked to a lawyer he's not doing the polygraph because they're looking at him as a suspect and Detective Marshall's like whoa dude like no one called you a suspect I'm just trying to move past you and put the pieces together so we can like figure out where we need to start and he hangs up on them. Now I want to be clear I will 100 I have a double standard on polygraphs if me or my family members are ever asked to take one in the relation to a disappearance never I will not do it I will not recommend anyone I know to do it however if me or one of my family members are the missing person and there's somebody else

take the polygraph yeah I will for sure be the one bullying them into taking a polygraph I get that what I'm saying doesn't make sense but it is what it is but I feel like it does honestly I agree with you maybe because we are a lot alike but I'm with you on this well Caitlyn's mom confronts him on this she's like you used to be her dad for god's sake she's just take the polygraph right help us figure out where she's at and he said listen I've said everything I have to say I told my story I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself and to be fair his story never changed it's not like he keeps giving them a different account every single time I talk to him however his story is kind of falling apart because police find that he's lying even more than they

initially thought they pull his cell phone records too and that text that he sent Caitlyn's mom at 152 saying that he dropped her off was sent from his home how far away was his home from where she was supposed to be it's about 50 miles so he did say that he dropped her off at one that would give him enough time to get home and then send that but police said that all the activity on his phone that day came from his house he was never near the mall and he was never near he never picked her up or dropped her off but we know she was at his house because that's where her mom dropped her also you know he had to take her early because he had to work that day right he never went into work that day what why lie about working like the only reason for that was to take Caitlyn

early but you never took her anywhere so what's the point so many questions right now this is more than enough for police to get a search warrant of his property and they search his home all 10 acres of his property they confiscate his electronics his vehicles everything and they find nothing that suggests anything foul happened at his property no foul play no struggle zip zilch nada the one other thing that I should point out about his phone records is that in the days after Caitlyn's disappearance everyone is calling constantly we talked about it earlier in the episode that her mom and her fiance and her sister everyone's trying to reach her they're getting her voicemail they know she's acting strange day one and day two no one's heard from her even though Caitlyn's

mom has gone to James and told him she's missing in action and didn't make her flight but James doesn't try reaching her once not a call not a text he doesn't even attempt to reach her Caitlyn's mom tries to confront James with all of this but he literally just shuts down and refuses to talk about it and I hate to be the one to do this to you guys but this is where the case ends she's never been seen since James still won't talk to anyone he's also never participated in any search for her god this is so unresolved I feel like I just leave you hanging but we just have this big mystery like everything we thought we knew about the day was a lie we don't know I guess you can say maybe she could have gotten to the airport in back but we know James didn't take

her because his phone never left his house she was never at the airport even though she said she was at the airport what happened to her did she have contact with anyone else that day not that anyone knows about her sister has this like theory in the back of her mind that she thinks Caitlyn maybe met up with a stranger that she met online there's zero evidence from all of her like messaging and her social media apps but police said that she did have one of those encrypted apps they didn't say which one that you can like message secretly but they can't ever pull records from so it's possible that she was talking to someone through one of those and met someone but here's my my problem with that even if she met someone else that day we know that her mom dropped her

off at James's house James has to know something and there's really like two prevalent theories and one is that James did something to harm her no one knows why though no one knows what the motive would be I mean he had a good relationship with her if her mom thought at all that their relationship was bad or James had any kind of ill will she would never have left her there with him so what would it be his motive to hurt her right the other theory is that she wanted to get away from her life like it was what she was telling people and they think maybe James like helped her do that but at this point like I can see him helping her but when it goes this far and then now people are accusing him he should fold yeah I like I would just be like listen she's she doesn't want to do

this anymore or I'd have as him I would ask her to call or I or if he is really responsible for helping her like go start a new life he could tell police that and then police could just confirm like her family doesn't have to know where she's at but I mean there's something about the way he's going out about this he could like ask her to write a letter in her handwriting and sign it and be like hey I oh my god no one would believe that are you kidding me okay but still like they're like I don't know I feel like there are there like you said there are ways for her and James to confirm that this is what happened like she wants to do this is her choice and something I keep coming back to are the text message that she sent so we know they were sent from the same town

if they were sent by her wanting to get away again James would have to know something about it he obviously didn't take her where he was supposed to take her did she leave us someone did you drop her off if they were never sent by her in the first place how did the person who sent them know that she had cheated on her fiance because the only people who knew that were her and the two people she had an affair with so unless she told James that evening and was like explaining to him about how she wanted a new life and then something turned bad and then he killed her and then he had this like secret that he could you I mean nothing again nothing makes sense if you try and say what you think happened or you try a theory like not everything connects yeah there's holes in every

single theory and I have no answer I have no way to help you like I'm so sorry so her family is actually still really active on a Facebook page called find Caitlin and it's spelled K A T E L I N so if you guys want up-to-date information you can go on their Facebook page ask to join the group and follow the case there there's about 1300 people currently following it I'm shocked it's not more because I'm so invested in this case but I would definitely recommend people go there definitely keep an eye on the case and gosh we're two years out now and still no closer to answers so I have to wonder how much longer it's going to go thank you guys for coming back for another unsolved mystery if you don't want to wait until next week you guys can always go to our website

crimejunkiepodcast.com and get your fix there we have the blog up with pictures and extras from this episode and then you can also sign up for our newsletter see you junkies next week crime junkie is written and hosted by me all of our sound production and editing comes from brick pre-wad and all of our music including our theme comes from Justin Daniel crime junkie is an audio chuck production so what do you think chuck do you approve