Going West: True Crime - Caitlyn Case // 324

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

In August of 2022, a 33-year-old woman traveled to her hometown in Louisiana from Colorado to purchase a car. But on the road trip back, she called her dad explaining that she was lost, and was having trouble with both her cell service and her GPS system. After the call dropped and her family didn’t hear from her again, she was reported missing…only for her car to turn up abandoned in a different state. This is the story of Caitlyn Case. BONUS EPISODES Apple Subscriptions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-west-true-crime/id1448151398 Patreon: patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES 1. GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-find-caitlyn?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_content=undefined&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer&utm_term=undefined 2. Find Caitlyn Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088803276134 3. Find Caitlyn Website: https://findcaitlyn.com/ 4. WGNO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO4kwqeMlew 5. Houma Today: https://www.houmatoday.com/story/news/2009/12/08/houma-woman-20-faces-fourth-dwi-charge/26882510007/ 6. OKC Fox: https://okcfox.com/news/local/caitlyn-rose-case-missing-houma-louisiana-kiamichi-river-fort-townson-hugo-oklahoma-paris-texas-mt-pleasant-gladewater-lewisville-gainesville-gmc-envoy 7. Websleuths: https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/ok-caitlyn-rose-case-traveling-from-louisiana-to-colorado-vehicle-abandoned-in-fort-towson-5-aug-2022.633145/page-15https://www.newspapers.com/image/827637110/?terms=%22caitlyn%20rose%20case%22&match=1 8. The Daily Review: https://www.newspapers.com/image/827637110/?terms=%22caitlyn%20rose%20case%22&match=1 9. OSBI: https://nixle.us/DTSRA  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello everybody, big thanks to Christina for recommending this case. So surprised that we hadn't heard about this one. This happened just last August of 2022. So less than a year ago. And we didn't know about it. And I feel like nobody's talking about it. But this is the like a case that takes place in Louisiana, but also Texas, but also Oklahoma. And that's what makes it so much more complicated. but it's a crazy story that needs attention

So make sure that you guys share this case and like we always say if you want to see photos from this case And every other case that we've covered on this show head on over to our socials We're on Instagram at going West podcast Twitter at going West pod and we're also on Facebook We have a regular page and we have a discussion group where we talk about cases, so head on over there. All right guys, this is episode 324 of Going West, so let's get into it. In August of 2022, a 33-year-old woman traveled to her hometown in Louisiana from Colorado

to purchase a car. But on the road trip back, she called her dad explaining that she was lost and was having trouble with both her cell service and her GPS system. After the call dropped and her family didn't hear from her again, she was reported missing, only for her car to turn up abandoned in a different state. of Caitlin Case. Caitlin Rose Case was born on January 25, 1989 in Huma, Louisiana, which is about an hour southwest of New Orleans.

Kaitlyn graduated from Terabon High School in 2007, and indulging her artistic nature went on to study at the Memphis College of Art over in Memphis, Tennessee. According to her family, Kaitlyn was known for being warm and loving. A free spirit, she was fascinated by astrology and spirituality, which you can really tell from her social media accounts and speaking of, she had at least seven Facebook profiles and three Instagram profiles, and in her biosection posted quotes like,

death before life, redemption after deliverance, still shining like the sun, another reads, sending positive vibrations, namaste, and then three things cannot be long hidden, the sun, the moon, and the truth. In one post, she was singing along softly to a song in the bathtub and said that she was commemorating a lost loved one. In a caption, wrote quote, learning obstacles without your presence is life without life,

Aquarius love, miss you Mimi, I see and hear you dancing in the sky. While she seemed happy and pretty at peace in her online presence, things hadn't always been great for her. Now according to reports printed in her home's local newspaper actually, Kielin has a slew of DUI's dating back to 2009 when she would have been 20 years old. And then in 2021, she was arrested again on charges of failure to appear in court after a reckless driving ticket and a possession of drug paraphernalia charge, as well as

for criminal damage to property and resisting arrest. But yeah, the specifications of some of these charges are just unknown to us because there doesn't seem to be a ton of information available about Kaitlyn's family and her personal history. And unfortunately, like I said in the intro, even her disappearance hasn't been publicized the way that it should be. Because again, this story just gets so bizarre and it's so clear that something happened to her, the police know it, so we just have to spread it out there ourselves. Yeah, and it's perhaps also because of this history that in the summer of 2022, Kaitlyn was just ready for a fresh start.

Though she had a background in art, Kaitlyn later pursued engineering, and in June of 2022, had secured a job as a technical mechanic at a casino in Colorado. So she relocated from Louisiana to Blackhawk, Colorado, to work in the engineering department of the Lodge Casino. Now, this particular casino was situated in the mountains, but it's also less than an hour away from Denver, and actually have been to been to Black Hawk. It's really, really beautiful. It's just like Colorado. Yeah, I mean, it's basically just like this little town situated right in between these very rocky mountains on every side.

I mean, it's gorgeous, but it's kind of weird that it's placed like out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, I mean, I looked it up. I think it has a population of 128 people. That's how small it is. And it just has a ton of casinos just amongst nature and wilderness. Yeah, basically people don't really live in Black Hawk. It's more so just for tourists to go and gamble.

Yeah, so very interesting place for a fresh start, but that's what she was doing. And apparently, according to Caitlyn's family, she loved and took pride in her new position. She also had ties to Colorado already because her brothers Christian and Claude actually lived there, and they were running a construction company together there at the time. After more than a month on the job, 33-year-old Kaitlyn decided to head back to Huma for a visit, and also to take care of a necessary task, which was buying a new car. And with it being under a three-hour flight, it wasn't a huge trip on the way there. Someone she knew was selling their Black 2006 GMC Envoy, so Kaitlyn decided that she would fly back,

visit her family and friends for a few days, and then drive the car back to Black Hawk by herself, which would be over a 20-hour drive, so definitely not as seamless as the flight there. But on July 31, 2022, Caitlyn flew from Colorado back home to Louisiana. After about four days together, Thursday August 4th 2022, she again said goodbye to her family and set off in her new card head back to Colorado, which again you know is a drive that would take her close to 20 hours not including stops. According to her mom Pegg, Caitlin was in constant contact with her family. Her parents are divorced,

but she was checking in with each of them regularly. Now by the following day, which was Friday, August 5th, Caitlin had made it to North East Texas, which is the first state that she would cross through before eventually passing through New Mexico briefly and then up into Colorado. Security camera footage later obtained by police proves that she made multiple stops for gas, bathroom breaks, and food along her route, including stops in Mount Pleasant, Gladewater, Lewisville, Gainesville, and Paris, Texas. But strangely, if you look at these destinations on a map, they form kind of like a horseshoe

shape, with Dallas in the middle, and the frequent stop seems as if they would, you know, slow down on her route. It's also interesting to note that the quickest and most direct route would have been a straight shot through Dallas, which would have never landed her in Mount Pleasant. Yeah, that's what makes this entire story so weird as well is her frequent stops and where she stopped.

We're going to post like different maps that will make that will kind of help you visualize this and help kind of understand better why this is so weird because it's just bizarre. Yeah, because you know once she hit Shreveport Louisiana her map should have rooted her almost due west towards Dallas. But instead she headed northwest for Mount Pleasant after heading past TREEPport, which added close to an hour to her already 20-hour trip, and would then shoot her up through Oklahoma, again very briefly, instead of New Mexico. Because Oklahoma

was a state which she wouldn't have, you know, originally needed to pass through because it would have taken her a lot longer. But in attempting to map out her movements, it's important to note that police have not laid out a precise timeline, so it's hard to know exactly which direction she was moving in, when she stopped at each place, or why she was stopping in the first place. But luckily with the help of her parents, police tracked her bank records and matched up the charges with her stops. But as far as it's known publicly, her bank activity ceased after her last stop for gas and Paris, Texas, which would have been,

like roughly seven hours into her trip. So after departing Paris, Texas on the afternoon of Friday, August 5th, Kaelin got turned around on her route. She told her dad that her GPS navigation service in her car had been working only sporadically and that her phone service was so unreliable in rural Texas that she was having trouble getting around which could obviously make sense as to why she was going in this stop. Yeah, but it's interesting because

you know this was just last year so we know that I mean I don't know what kind of GPS maybe her GPS system was old. I don't know maybe she wasn't using the one on her phone because she didn't have service. Well the car that she did purchase was a 2006. Yeah. Exactly. So if it already had a GPS inside the car, it probably wasn't that great. Yeah. And it seems like she was, because like all the articles said that it was a GPS navigation service in her car. So we can assume that it was either a built-in or that it was like a separate GPS system,

which some people have for older cars. Yeah. But anyway, just kind of weird that it seemed to be taking her all over the place. Now, shortly before 5 p.m. that day, she called her dad to tell him that she was lost and that she was confused. He was attempting to give her manual directions over the phone, just guiding her back to the

interstate that she was supposed to be traveling on, which was 271. According to her phone's last Wi-Fi connection and Gmail location data, Caitlin's last known location was five miles or eight kilometers south of Bogota, Texas in a small town called Cunningham. Now this was strange once again because Cunningham is a very rural area. Like it doesn't make any sense that she would be so off the highway in a rural area because when you're traveling across the country or through multiple states, you just stay on the interstate the whole time, you know. For the most part, yeah.

For the most part, you're not going through small rural towns. If she was already on the interstate, she needed to keep going on the interstate, yet she somehow ended up in this very rural town called Cunningham. But Gota itself is about a 30-minute drive southeast of Paris, Texas, where Caitlin would last be seen on security camera footage at a gas station. But Cunningham was in the opposite direction that she needed to go to get back to Colorado. Around 5pm, Caitlin's call with her dad dropped and he assumed that it was due to poor service again.

When he attempted to call her back and received no answer, he didn't worry just yet because he was assuming that she would call him back when she was in a better service area. But when he didn't hear from her, he continued to call her as did her mom and her brothers. Remember her brothers are in Colorado. After hours with no word from her, her family really started to fear the worst, especially knowing that she had been confused and kind of disoriented when she was last heard from. When night turned to morning, there was still no word from Kaelin. So her family filed a Missing Pers persons report with the Huma Louisiana Police Department.

And with that, the Huma Police Department issued a notice to police in nine different states in the area to be on the lookout for Louisiana license plate number 957 FDO. She was also entered into the database of the National Crime Information Center. So they really were trying to help because this was weird. Nobody heard from her. She was lost the last time they heard from her. So they know that something could be wrong here. Exactly.

The community of Huma attempted to support Kaitlyn's family. They just circulated information about her and getting the word out. A man whom Caitlin met at a notary public office just before she left Huma remembered quote, me and my family were upset about it, worried. Once I met her, I seen she was a nice loving person. She spoke about animals and stuff like that. You could tell that this was a good person. But with her being in a different state than all of her family and those who knew her, the search was beginning at a disadvantage. Especially because, yeah, she is in a different state. None of them have lived in Texas.

They're not super familiar with the area. It's just the state next to Louisiana. Right. So they have no idea where she is. So the following day, which was Saturday, August 7th, Caitlin's cell phone pinged off of a tower in Hugo, Oklahoma, which is about an hour northwest of Bogota and across the state line.

It's a very small rural town in southeastern Oklahoma that hosts just around 5,000 people, sitting over two hours away from any major cities. This could mean that Caitlin herself had been using the phone, but could also have simply meant that her phone still had a charge. So armed with this information, the Oklahoma Missing Person's Department promptly deployed a search team to the area, but they found nothing. With no word from her and no sign of her car, her family needed to do more than

just wait around. So according to Caitlin's mom Peg, quote, Caitlin's father headed to Hugo Oklahoma on the morning of August 8, 2022, and has essentially lived there since our daughter went missing. Which is crazy just to know that he has been in this town for so long just hoping for answers for her because like you just said it's a very rural small town. I mean I would do the same thing if any of my kids went missing I don't have kids but if I did and they went missing you know that I would pick up and move to that town until

I found answers and I feel like that you know it's very important that he's there doing this. With Caitlin's dad heading the search for his daughter, Caitlin's brother attempted to track down her final movements using the Find My Phone feature. According to Pag, they also had help from a Best Buy employee who was able to pinpoint the near exact location of the phone.

And that's what makes it even weirder, sorry, before you continue, is she had an iPhone, you know, she had to find my phone feature. So it makes it even weirder to me that she would not you know how when you are using your maps like we've wrote chips so much together you and I and you'll put in a destination again I mean I don't even know if she was using her iPhone maybe she just tried using the cars GPS again this is a new card her so maybe she wasn't familiar with the system but usually if you if she would have started off at home and put in Black Hawk Colorado, it would

have created the maps for her, because this has happened to us when we have road tripped in, we're out of service for hours. It still works, your maps works as long as you started it when you were in service, it's just going to keep the same data that it collected when you were in service, it's just gonna keep the same data that it collected when you were in service. So I wonder about that as well, if she just didn't try on her iPhone at all, and that's why she was having issues, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's possible that when she did get into this area

with no service, the GPS could have turned off. Obviously, she was saying that it was sporadically working, so it's possible that it turned off itself. But not the one on her phone. It doesn't seem like, that's what I mean, is it? I'm wondering why she used the one in the car that she wasn't familiar with instead of the one on her phone. You know what I mean?

Because it all reports show. Well, I mean, this is a new car to her. So maybe she was interested in using the GPS feature on her car. Yeah. And then it's possible that when she got into an area where there wasn't service, she couldn't put it into her iPhone.

Exactly. Because there was no service, right? That's true. That's true. It's a possibility. I mean, there's just, there's, you know, a few different possibilities here that could have happened. Totally.

Hard to pinpoint exactly which one she did. Right. With the lack of information that we do have. So again, this Best Buy employee was able to kind of pinpoint the near-exact location of the phone. And armed with this information, they were able to put together a rough timeline of Caitlin's movements on the evening that she disappeared. put together a rough timeline of Caitlin's movements on the evening that she disappeared. On Friday, August 5th, at 6pm, just over an hour after her final phone call with her dad, her phone's Wi-Fi attempted to connect to a source on County Road 17300, which is 14 miles or 22 kilometers from Bogota.

In County Road, 17300 I guess I should say that, is just southeast of the small town of Cunningham, Texas. Less than an hour later, at 6.59 pm, her vehicle is believed to have left Cunningham, Texas. The sun went down that night around 8.13 pm local time, so it was starting to get dark, and it seemed based on her movements, as if Caitlin was still lost.

But strangely, in the security camera picture of Caitlin's last confirmed sighting in Paris, Texas, it appeared to be dark already. Yeah, it's kind of weird because that's over an hour before the sun was supposed to set and we looked at the pictures like it's very dark outside, so I don't know what that means, I don't know what that could mean, but it is just a little odd. Yeah, it just means that the timeline seems to be a little bit off here. Or it makes you wonder if the timestamp of this is incorrect, but then I know it also is in conjunction with our cell phone records, so like something's just off here.

is in conjunction with her cell phone record, so like some things just off here. Well, we know that to be true because get this. So at 10.53pm, her phone dialed 911, though it's unclear if Caitlyn herself was the one who called or whether or not she actually spoke with an operator. No police car was dispatched, and her exact location at this time is still unknown. Right, because that was four hours later. Right. So according to Peg, there were multiple 911 calls made from Caitlyn's phone number, but none were followed up on. And police have not released recordings if they even have them.

So we have no idea what she was even calling about. Like with the information that we have given so far, you might assume that she was trying to down 911 because sometimes you can get a 911 call out when you can't get a normal call out. And that was her way of saying, I need help, I'm so lost, you know, whatever. But with what's to come, it really makes you believe

that she was looking for more than just directions. So with the information that Caitlyn's dad and brother were able to glean from the movements of her phone that night, her dad contacted the local Huma Police Department again, and were able to surmise that Caitlyn's phone was pinging from behind the gates of a private gated property near Hugo, Oklahoma. Then on August 12, 2022, around 3.30 p.m., Katelyn's dad himself located her car on the property. Upon realizing that the property was gated, he tipped off the police to the most recent cell phone ping. Now they, along with Caitlin's dad, descended upon the area to search for Caitlin, her phone,

and her car. And according to police, whoever left her car there was likely trying to dispose of the vehicle and the nearby Kaya Mishie River. The Kaya Mishie River meets its tributary, the Red River, in Hugo. And it begins on a mountain in Oklahoma and then flows south and southwest towards Texas. Caitlin's car became trapped between two trees, overlooking what was apparently a 75-foot drop to the river below. According to her mom Peg, it took three to four hours to remove the vehicle from where it was recovered

because of its difficult position. Inside the car, police removed two cell phones, one which was for her work and one that was personal, and the red tennis shoes that she was believed to have been wearing in the earlier security camera footage that was captured at the gas station in Paris. Before this discovery, there was reasonable doubt that there had been foul play involved and it remained completely possible based on Caitlin's final movements that she had simply been lost and gotten stuck somewhere or had been in an accident. But sadly, this discovery kind of solidified the probability that Caitlyn had a victim of foul play.

Even though there were no other signs that pointed to that conclusion, like there was no blood, there was no sign of a struggle, and nothing in her car or around it seemed to be out of place. But Caitlyn was still missing. Before that quick break, I was explaining how Caylon's car was found. It was trapped between two trees and it was right next to the edge of a 75-foot cliff into the river. So I just want to talk about this for a second, because obviously, you know, somebody could originally surmise that she had gotten stuck there.

But just the fact that she was out there in the first place to get stuck doesn't make sense. Yeah, like where would she have been going that would have taken her to this to this cliff. Yeah, and on this private gated property in Oklahoma where she's not trying to go, her original maps if she would have followed the the the kind of quick is a route they are what it take you through new max ago exactly not Oklahoma yet her car ends up in Oklahoma in an area that she wouldn't have originally passed or she wouldn't have needed to pass

anyway because it is not on the interstate to get up to colorado yet completely agree. So the discovery of Caitlin's two cell phones raised innumerable questions, like why had her car been dumped, but both of her cell phones remained intact and inside the car. And if she did have two cell phones and a GPS system in her car, how had her service gotten so bad that she was unable to even maintain the phone call with her dad

or keep her maps up, especially in 2022. Some were starting to believe that this pointed to someone interrupting her call themselves by abducting her or getting in the car with her when she possibly pulled over to figure out her GPS or to get signal to make a call. When the police released a photo of Caitlin's stop at the gas station in Paris, Texas, many believe that they can spot a figure sitting in the front seat while she gets out to fill her car with gas. I'm just gonna say I really tried to see that, I did,

but basically the security camera footage is like in front of her car directly in front of her car and you can see her from behind Kind of like standing at the pump, but it's so dark The like we said it was dark outside when this was captured The only thing I could imagine is that the sun was setting and because of the the bright lights of the gas station That it made it seem darker outside the gas station than it was But I still don't think that's true over an hour before the sunset.

But anyway, it's just so dark you cannot see inside her car at all. So I think anybody saying that they see a figure is just making shit up. Unless there's footage that we haven't seen that's not online. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it's a bit of a reach. But because Caitlin's car was found on private property, the list of people who could have been involved was pretty short. It seems most likely that it was either a resident of the property, or that the property owners were assisting whomever was disposing of her car there.

As the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations, or OSBI, and Kaitlyn's dad searched the property, they met a woman who claimed to be a relative of the property owner. In one online forum, she's listed as the potential sister-in-law of the owners, so we'll just go with that. According to her, late on the evening that Kaitlyn disappeared, and possibly even into the next morning, she saw and heard two cars speeding down the gated drive into the property. Now a short while later, only one returned and exited. According to this woman, the cars were moving very quickly and she didn't get a good

look at who was driving, at the colors of the cars or even the make and model. It was also dark, so by the time she looked over to the fleeing car, all she could make out were the tail lights fading into the distance. It seemed certain now that someone who lived or was visiting that property had to have had something to do with Caitlin's disappearance, or at the very least, were helping someone else cover it up by hiding her car. Yeah, I mean, and you just wonder if you can even trust this woman in what she's saying. Like, obviously, it sounds suspicious that she's even not suspicious, but the information is

creepy. It's eerie knowing that two cars came in only one left, and then you kind of can determine from there that her car was then planted and somebody else drove off. Well, she's related to the property owner. So is she telling the truth? Is she lying to cover up for a family member? I mean, that's, I mean, at this point, like, her word is really all we have to go on. The only thing I can think of of why she wouldn't be lying is that she could have easily said I was sleeping, I saw nothing. I don't know how that car got there. So for her to say anything at all, like, oh, I saw one car leave.

I mean, again, that could also be her pointing blame in another direction, that somebody just came onto her relative's property and then left, like that could be her deflecting blame, their responsibility. Yeah, and basically that's exactly what I mean. Is she telling the truth about this? But the OSPI believes that her car was driven into the property at 11.46 pm,

and then it was discarded there. Oh, and also another thing we have to remember is that if her car was abandoned there, obviously the perpetrator would have needed to get away from the property and back to their own vehicle or their home if they didn't live on the property themselves Which would make sense for you know having a second car there for sure true Yeah, very true and then also there being more than one person involved right you know right can't drive two cars at the same time So on August 13th 2022 this same day the case was officially handed over to the OSBI, a search of the property

was conducted by an unidentified non-profit missing persons organization who had been hired by Caitlin's family, not by law enforcement. This group also brought dogs, but it's unclear whether they were tracking dogs or cadaver dogs. However, the search had to be concluded early because the son of the property owner, whoever that person is, demanded that they cease their efforts. And it does make sense, you know, if they're innocent, maybe they just don't want people rummaging

through their things and causing disarray, you know? Yeah, but I mean, her car was found on their property, so I feel like they have every right to be searching here. Absolutely, and also it kinda makes you wonder, well, if a car was found on your property, don't you want people to search to make sure that they find everything to catch the person who trespassed on your property as well?

Yeah, could it be potentially dangerous for you? Yeah. The fact that somebody else had been on your property? Yeah, that would scare me, you know, for you, the fact that somebody else had been on your property. Yeah, that would scare me. And also, why would they not, if they are innocent, and they have nothing to hide, why not help? But who knows?

So unfortunately, for the family, the OSBI also failed to secure the area where the car was found. So any of the property owners or those who had been in the area could have taken that opportunity to remove or conceal evidence, which is so frustrating considering that's where her car was found. So any evidence in that particular location would have been vital to figuring out what happened to her. So as the OSBI traced Caitlin's steps back even farther, they found that the stop she made

in Cunningham may have involved a witness who had actually tried to help her find her way. According to Internet Slooths, the area surrounding Cunningham, Texas, which is the town where her phone allegedly last attempted to connect to Wi-Fi, was in an area surrounded by solar plants. But somehow, Kaylen wound up on a residential street where she supposedly pulled into the driveway of a local man who offered her assistance in getting back on her route to Colorado. According to Kaylen's phone, there was no GPS signal or Gmail data between 516 and 659 pm except for her phone's potential Wi-Fi connection, which then you're wondering where was she connecting to Wi-Fi?

Was it at this man's house? Was it at a gas station? Like where is she finding Wi-Fi? That's a little area as well. Because it would have to be at a business or residence. So the man who helped Caitlin with directions claims that Caitlin said that she had made a wrong turn and then a center on her way, but remember that was all the way back in Texas not Oklahoma.

OSBI believes that she left Cunningham at 6.59 pm, but so then how did she get up to Hugo Oklahoma? Like it technically could have been on her way up, but again, in a very strange and just complicated route. So how did she get lost again? Well as the OSBI continued to dig, new information emerged about her route that changed everything. On Friday, August 19th, 2022, exactly two weeks since Caitlin's disappearance, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations announced that they had amended some of their beliefs about Caitlin's final movements on the evening she disappeared, and that they now maintain that she may have had someone else with her in the car that evening.

But why? The press release reads, quote, The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations is releasing additional information in the Katelyn Case investigation in hopes of narrowing the search area. During the course of the investigation, special agents have determined that 33-year-old cases last known location was in the Begota, Texas area on August 5, 2022 at approximately 5pm. She was traveling northbound along Highway 271 towards Paris, Texas. Shortly after 7pm on August 5, cases cell phones registered on cell towers at Patenville, Texas,

and its tower located south of Paris. So Pattonville, Texas is very close to Cunningham where Caitlin supposedly stopped and asked a man for directions, but it's closer to Paris, so it would make a difference in her route. Cunningham is about 30 minutes southeast of Paris, whereas Pattonville is only about 15 minutes away. Right, and remember, if she went from Paris to Cunningham, I know this is so confusing, but if she went from Paris to Cunningham, even though she's supposed to go

from Paris all the way up to Black Hawk, that's 30 minutes southeast. She's supposed to be going northwest, so she went 30 minutes in the wrong direction. That's how lost she was. Exactly. The press release continues, quote, at approximately 9 p.m. on August 5, 2022, cases vehicle traveled around the

South Loop of Highway 286 in Paris to FM 79, and for those who don't know FM is farm-to-market road, which is a term used for rural roads, where it proceeded in a northwesternly direction from Paris. Shortly afterwards, the vehicles believed to have traveled north in an unknown path headed to Oklahoma. After entering Oklahoma on Highway 271, the vehicle then turned east on Highway 109 south of Grant, Oklahoma. At this point in the investigation, there is concern that someone other than Caitlin Case was in control of the vehicle. It is believed that an attempt was made to deposit the vehicle in the Kiyomichi River to hide its location

during the late-night hours of August 5, 2022. It is not believed at this time that case physically entered Oklahoma. Case left Huma, Louisiana, in route to Colorado on August 4th, 2022. Her last contact with family members was on August 5th. Her vehicle was located on the banks of the Kiyomichi River, South of Fort Towson, the night of August 12th. So this is a shocking revelation to say the least because this means that Caitlin may have been abducted and taken somewhere to be held hostage or that she was killed in Texas before her car was dumped in Oklahoma. Like for them to say, they don't believe that she physically entered Oklahoma would mean

that something happened to her shortly after she was seen on that footage at the gas station shortly after she asked that man apparently for directions and then somebody dumped her car in a different state. And that just makes the whole case that much more difficult that police are dealing with multiple states in different areas here. Exactly. And then I also just wonder if she did have someone in her car. And if so, if it was on purpose or if someone snuck in while she was getting gas or making a stop, because I'm just thinking like as a young woman traveling in an area that she's not familiar

with and she has spotter reception and wonky GPS. And if she's just trying to get back to her house in Colorado, it would be very hard for me to believe that she just willingly picked somebody up. I mean, I highly doubt it. It seems more like someone probably took advantage of her. Yeah. In some way, in Texas. But then we also have to remember that if she's getting gas just before 7 p.m. Right?

Or just around 7 p.m. Sorry. And then if her phone attempted to call 911 four hours after that, like what happened throughout that whole time, you know, like that's a lot of time. If something were to happen to her right after the gas station footage,

then what was going on for four hours? Yeah, I honestly have no idea. Is it possible that somebody jacked her car and left her on the side of the road in a rural area with no service? And somehow she was able to get through to 9-1-1. Well, let's kind of talk more about that timeline. So again, Caitlin's car entered the private gated property somewhere between Hugo, Oklahoma

and Fort Townsend, Oklahoma at 11.56 pm, which would have been five hours after she left Cunningham, Texas, with supposed directions from the man whose driveway that she allegedly entered. Now, weirdly, both Hugo and Fort Towson have been reported as a course final resting place that night, and they're about 15 minutes apart. So please have not announced the address or the owner of the property. So we can't use this to our advantage to like discuss the exact area in this episode unfortunately. So we just know it was either in Hugo or in Fort Thousand. So that's kind of like broad. But Caitlyn's last phone ping was at 7 p.m. in Patentville, which is about an hour away. So subtracting the time that it would take to drive there,

there are about four hours that are unaccounted for. During this time, something happened to her. And according to the OSBI's statements, it sadly seems like she is possibly deceased and that she never made it out of Texas. Now, because there were two cars entering the private property and investigators do not believe that Caitlin was driving her own vehicle,

this makes it certain that there must be more than one person involved in her disappearance and possible death. It also seems likely that they either lived there or knew the area well enough if they had it straight for Hugo or Fort Thousand or at least that general area. They also would have had to know someone connected to the property obviously

where they dumped the car. So I think there's a lot of answers that can come from this property and I'm sure police are looking into it as much as they can, but like just knowing that her car wasn't just abandoned on some country road randomly, like this is connected to an actual person whose name they have. Right, an actual property. Yeah, like a real location with real people attached, so that at least they have that. So on August 17th, 2022, two people claimed that

they spotted Caitlin in the back of a white SUV in Texas. The car was pulled over alongside of the road with car trouble, and there were two women behind the car who had pushed it from where it had stopped on the road to a gas station at 3750 Lamar Avenue in Paris, Texas. According to these witnesses, Caitlin remained in the back seat and looked like she was crying. While the other two women tended to the situation,

a dark-colored SUV pulled up behind them at the gas station, seeming to know who they were and getting out to assist them. Police did follow up on this potential siding, but they were never able to locate anybody that was involved, including the crying woman in the backseat, who was believed to be Caitlin. On one post that OSPI made about Caitlin's disappearance, urging the public to come forward

with information, one woman wrote, quote, There was a young lady out here in Pottsboro, Texas seemed confused. She was sleeping in a friend's boat house, then showed up at my workplace off of Lake Texoma. Greyson County Sheriff's were called to do a welfare check on her, took her to Texoma Medical Center in Denison, Texas. She looks like this girl. Last week, maybe Monday, Tuesday.

And for reference, Denison, Texas is over an hour west of where Caitlin's car was found, but it's also very close to the Texas Oklahoma border. Another commenter claimed that she had seen Caitlin at a lone star gas station in the days since her car was found. But we've discussed sightings many times on this show and how sometimes it's uncovered that a person was deceased at the time that such sightings came in, you know, proving them to be inaccurate. So is this the case here or did people really see her?

And if they did, maybe she wasn't killed after all, but instead, this is like maybe a conversation about her being held somewhere or possibly human traffic. And on that subject, Kalen's uncle believes that she was abducted for the purpose of trafficking. And while this is not entirely outside the realm of possibility, it has not been deemed a credible theory by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations. Local volunteers papered the Paris-Texas area with over 3,000 flyers, but investigators have been very tight-lipped about developments and very little information has been made public. On Caitlin's birthday this year, her mom Pegg posted this tribute on their family's website,

quote, Today, January 25th is Caitlin Rose Case's 34th birthday. Please take a moment to hold her in your hearts and prayers." Peg continued that in addition to the OSBI, the Louisiana Attorney General's Office of Criminal Investigation, as well as the Texas Attorney General's Office, had both joined the search for her daughter. She thanked the community for their efforts and concluded by saying, quote, we are so grateful to all of you for sharing, posting, consoling, and contributing. You are our village and we will never forget you."

On Caitlin's Facebook group, Peg honored her with pictures of Caitlin over the years and wrote quote, she is a wonderful person that loved with all her heart and would help anyone in need. Sadly, there have been no developments in Caitlin's case, or at least not that the OSBI have announced publicly. On their website, her parents pled, quote, we are asking for your help to bring justice to those that participated in her disappearance

and help in locating where our daughter can be found. Deceased or alive, our family will be providing a reward to the person or persons once this information is verified. We believe our daughter was abducted and are desperate to find answers that will finally piece together what happened to her. Our family will never give up looking for our daughter and never give up fighting for the justice that she deserves. Our daughter is one of the kindest, most trusting human beings on this planet. Kaitlyn Rose Case had brown hair and brown eyes, stood at about 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighed about 140 pounds.

She has 3 tat 2s including a dragon on her ribs, a dragon fly on her left foot, and a triangle in the center of her back. Per security camera footage, she was last seen wearing a black spaghetti strap tank top, light blue jeans, and red tennis shoes. If you have any information about the disappearance of Caitlin Case, please call the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations Tip Line at 580-298-5525.

Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and on Tuesday we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Again, I really hope that wasn't too confusing. I know it's complicated when we're talking about so many different locations, which is why this case is really important to share because it is so complicated. It does include so many different locations, so many different cities in multiple different states, and that just makes it harder for investigators.

So please make sure that you share and go check out our socials to view maps and different photos from this case to kind of help give you a better visual if you need one. Oh, and thank you again to Christina for recommending this case. We're going to be getting out some bonus episodes to you guys soon. And bonus episodes, I was too guys soon. Sorry they haven't come out yet. We usually try to do that before the 15th,

but it's just been a super busy month with like wedding preparations for us that is coming up this summer. So thank you for your patience, but we're gonna have two bonus episodes coming very soon for you guys. And also if you do wanna recommend the case, make sure that you email us at going westpodcast at gmail.com that's where we're gonna see

you're we're gonna see your recommendations and your emails we typically don't really look at those suggestions on over social media but through email we will get to them. Absolutely. Alright guys so for everybody out there in the world don't be a stranger. Thank you. you