Going West: True Crime - Katelin Akens // 102

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

In 2015, a 19-year-old visited her family home in Virginia for a few days before heading back to Arizona to start school. But after she was taken to the Virginia airport to go home, she sent a string of strange and uncharacteristic text messages to her loved ones and never boarded the plane. Between false alibis, suspicious phone records, and haunting evidence, this case proves to be incredibly bizarre and downright dumbfounding. This is the story of Katelin Akens. *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *CASE SOURCES* https://fredericksburg.com/news/crime_courts/look-back-katelin-akens-disappeared-four-years-ago-today/article_f8797676-1793-11ea-852d-0b37c01d3369.html https://charleyproject.org/case/katelin-michelle-akens https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/puzzling-text-messages-what-happened-to-katelin-akens-d89ebbb2036f https://truecrimediva.com/katelin-akens/ https://truecrimecrystals.tumblr.com/post/167875870935/19-year-old-katelin-akens-has-been-missing-from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/one-woman-dead-another-missing-under-mysterious-circumstances_n_566729fbe4b08e945ff13545 https://www.fox5dc.com/news/virginia-womans-disappearance-continues-to-puzzle-police-two-years-later https://truecrimedaily.com/2017/02/01/confession-or-cry-for-help-missing-teens-texts-conflict-with-locations/ https://crimeola.com/katelin-akens-wiki-missing/ ( https://crimeola.com/katelin-akens-wiki-missing/ ) http://darkmatter69.blogspot.com/2019/11/katelin-akens-virginian-gone-girl.html https://www.whitepages.com/name/James-D-Branton/Partlow-VA/Po8MmA6K18W https://fredericksburg.com/spotsylvania-jury-convicts-man-of-killing-heather-ciccone/article_cb89a8f4-2200-5f0d-80fd-0bfbcdd9d8f7.html https://heraldcourier.com/news/woman-charged-with-being-accessory-in-slaying-of-heather-ciccone/article_84e25cf2-e025-11e7-9d03-b76de14f1177.html Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to Crime fans, I'm your host Teez. And I'm your other host, Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. Hope everyone's having a great new year so far. Thank you so much for tuning in to Going West yet again and thank you so much to everybody last year who listened, who shared with a friend who wrote us a review on iTunes. It means so much to us that you guys do that. Yes, we really hope that 2021 is treating you guys well so far. Today we have a really interesting case for you guys, but before we get into that, I just

wanted to let you guys know that we do have bonus episodes available on our Patreon account. So if you head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast, we have about 31 bonus episodes on there right now. So definitely go over there, subscribe to get your bonus episodes. And we do shout outs for our new patrons at the end of every episode, so don't forget to listen for your name. And if you don't want to join Patreon or you're not all caught up,

a big way that you can help our show is by writing us a super nice review on Apple Podcast or, like I said, just sharing with a friend. All right, guys, this is episode 102 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2015, a 19-year-old visited her family home in Virginia for a few days before heading back to Arizona to start school. But after she was taken to the Virginia Airport to go home, she sent a string of strange and uncharacteristic text messages to her loved ones and never boarded the plane.

Between false alibis, suspicious phone records, and haunting evidence, this case proves to be incredibly bizarre and downright dumb-founding. This is the story of Caitlyn Katelyn Michelle Aikens was born on September 2, 1996 in Goshen, Indiana to her mother Lisa. Her biological father wasn't in her life and ultimately left the picture for good when she was just three years old. And from my research, it seems that Lisa was around 18 years old when she had Katelyn, and she and Katelyn's father weren't married, so he just wasn't really a part of her life. But Lisa was such a great mother to Caitlin, and they were incredibly close throughout her

entire upbringing. After this, Caitlin, her mother Lisa and her younger sister Gabby moved to Virginia, and then a few years later in 2003, when Caitlin was seven, Lisa married a man named James Branton. So, he was definitely more of a father figure to Caitlin and her sister Gabby, since their dad wasn't in their lives. The family lived in Northern Virginia for a while, and that's where Caitlin grew up for the most part, and also where she attended her freshman year at River Bend High School

in Fredericksburg, Virginia. But that summer, they moved down to Caroline County, Virginia, which is just about a 30-minute drive south, and Caitlin began attending Caroline County High School. Caitlin was incredibly smart and determined, but she was also very carefree, outgoing, and just all around very loving. She was super talkative and always kept in close communication with all of her friends and family, and was very open about her life as well. But Caitlin really wasn't a fan of school. She had a big social life, but wanted to get done with high school as quick as possible

so that she could move on to bigger and better things. She was very expressive with her appearance as well, so she always had a different hair color, whether it was brown or blue or blonde or even pink, and she also had a few piercings. Her belly button, nose, septum, and lip were all pierced, and she had small gauges in both of her ears. And when she was old enough, she got a few tattoos. Five butterflies and blue wind on her left forearm and three bursting red stars on her right foot. Being as creative as she was, Caitlyn's dream was to go to

Cosmetology school. So when she was in her sophomore year of high school, she studied to get her GED and completed her junior and senior year at the same time as her sophomore year. So that's like really hard to do. So this just goes to show you how dedicated and smart she actually was. Caitlyn's closest friend in her preteen years was a girl named Amber Rios, who was a couple years older, and the two were absolutely inseparable. Over the years, they remained in very close touch and stayed best friends, but this friendship

turned into a long-distance relationship during their teen years, and they planned to live together when they turned 18. After Caitlyn got her GED at age 16, she didn't go right into cosmetology school because she wanted to save up enough money first so she could move out of her parents' house and go live in Arizona with her girlfriend Amber. According to Caitlin's best friend Kevin, a big motivator for her to move out of her mom and stepfather's house was to get away from her stepfather James. She didn't trust him and was generally very nervous around him.

Caitlin never confirmed whether or not she was ever abused physically by him, but her friend Kevin says that James was definitely at least verbally abusive towards her. When Caitlin turned 18 in September 2014, she finally made the move out to Arizona to be with Amber, who at this time was 21 years old and working in the restaurant industry, and soon after, the two got engaged.

And although Caitlin didn't keep in touch with James very much, she was constantly talking to her younger sister Gabby and mom Lisa, whether it was calling them while she was on the way to the store, or just texting them multiple times a day. So they stayed very close and talked about everything that went on in their days. And this is exactly how I am with my mom and sister, like we just talk all day about everything. And Lisa, who again is Caitlin's mom, even said that one time when Caitlin was in Arizona, she called her because she was making banana bread and her bowl was too full of ingredients, and it was spilling out everywhere when she stirred. So she was just basically calling her mom to say,

my bowl's too small, what do I do? So she just called her mom and sister over everything, just funny little things going on throughout the day. And I totally get this because I've lived in a different state from my family and obviously you live in a different state right now from your family, Daphne. So it's totally understandable to want to stay in touch with them because just because you can't be around them physically doesn't mean that you can't tell them all these little details about your day. Right, even though my mom lives in California and I live in Oregon, we talk every day and it's almost like we don't live in different states. So they had this kind of thing going on as well.

And even if Lisa was at work, she would talk to Caitlin a few times on the phone throughout the day. So they were just very close. The following year in 2015, 19 year old Caitlinold Kaitlyn was finally ready to attend Cosmetology school, but she realized that she didn't have her high school diploma with her at her home in Arizona, but she needed it to start school. So she was set to start school on December 7th, but just before this time, her 17-year-old sister Gabby was due to have her baby boy.

Kaitlyn did not want to miss the birth of her nephew, so she figured that in early December she would just go home to Virginia, meet her nephew, grab her diploma, and then head back to Arizona to start school. So her mom Lisa booked her plane tickets, and on December 1, 2015, two weeks after her sister gave birth, Kaitlyn headed to Fredericksburg, Virginia. And by this time, James and Lisa had divorced, so James wouldn't be at the house while she was staying there. He was living in a house in Partlow, Virginia,

which is a very rural area, just about 30 minutes southwest of Lisa's home. Kaitlyn absolutely loved kids, and she was so excited to be an aunt, so meeting her nephew was something really special to her. On Thursday, December 3, 2015, halfway through her trip to Virginia, she decided to meet up with some of her old high school friends to kind of catch up and hang out. So that night, she went to her friend's apartment and they had a lot of fun throughout the night, but since their hangout was going late, her friends asked her, she went to her friend's apartment and they had a lot of fun throughout the night, but since their hangout was going late, her friends asked her if she wanted to spend the

night there and they would drive her to her mom's house the next day. So the next morning, she went back to her mom's house and spent some time with her nephew. The next morning, she and her mom sorted out who was going to take her to the airport, and since her mom Lisa worked that day, Saturday, December 5th, Lisa asked Kaitlyn to call her stepfather James and ask him for a ride. The airport, which was the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, just across the river from Washington, D.C. was about an hour and a half northeast of where James

lived. And it's kind of weird because actually where Caitlyn's mom lived was about 30 minutes closer to the airport. So she was closer but she had to work all day. So there was no way she could take her. So it was a further drive for James but he was available. Since James had to work that day as well, he had to take Caitlin to the airport four hours before her flight. But this was better than not getting there at all since her mother Lisa worked earlier than James did. Her flight wasn't until 5.40 pm, so at about 9.20 am,

Lisa dropped Caitlin off at James's house and they seemed very cordial. Lisa said that James appeared in a good mood and that they were talking about Caitlin starting Cosmetology school and she was really excited to tell them about it. Their relationship had been pretty rocky and ever since Lisa and James had divorced a few years prior, James had been pretty depressed and always seemed to be pretty angry as well. But he would come around from time to time and show that he still cared for Caitlin and her sister Gabby.

So dropping Caitlin off at his house wasn't odd or worry some at all. Everything seemed normal. After dropping her off, Lisa headed to work as an assistant retail manager at a store in her town of Fredericksburg, while Caitlin would remain at James' home for a few hours. James also works in Fredericksburg, but he worked as an insurance agent, and he had worked at 3.45pm that day. So the plan was that he and Caitlin would leave his house around 12 noon, so two and a half hours after she arrived there, to go to the airport at 1.30pm, again,

four hours before her flight. And that afternoon, at 1.52pm, James texted Lisa saying, I dropped Caitlyn off. And she responded right away and said, okay, thanks. How was the traffic? away and said, okay, thanks. How was the traffic?" And James responded, not too bad. Eight minutes after Lisa got the first text from James, she got a text from Caitlin's phone that said, I'm at the airport. Battery dying, so won't be able to text for a bit. So this text was received at 2pm. But four minutes earlier at 1.56 p.m. Caitlyn's fiance Amber received a very different text from Caitlyn that said, something came up. I'm not coming back today. I'll let you know when I get a new flight.

Then another text came in saying, I won't be able to text for a bit. Okay, so this is very, very odd and obviously very contradicting as well. It's weird because both texts are very different. One says, I'm at the airport as if I'm going to get on a flight, my battery's dying, and the other one says, basically, I'm not getting a a flight But I won't be able to text for a bit So both send the message that I'm not gonna be on my phone But for different reasons which is just really weird. Yeah, that's extremely strange Amber was very confused by this and couldn't reach Caitlin so she called Lisa and asked her what was going on

And that's when Lisa said that that didn't make any sense because four minutes after Amber got those texts from Caitlin, Caitlin texted her saying that she was at the airport and that her phone was dying. But she didn't mention anything about needing to get a new flight. And again, Caitlin and her mom were incredibly close so even if her battery was dying, she would have either tried to sneak in a quick call to her mom to explain that something changed with her flight, or she would have explained it in a text, so right off the bat Lisa had a very weird feeling.

With that Lisa called Caitlyn numerous times, but it kept going to voicemail. Amber, Gabby, and Lisa's sister Pam, who was Caitlyn's aunt that she was also very close with, all tried to call and text her throughout the afternoon too, but no one could get through. As time passed, Lisa was getting increasingly more worried. So when she got off work, she texted James and asked him exactly where did he drop Caitlyn off. And that's when James told her that he took her to the Springfield Mall. This mall is on the way to the airport in Springfield, Virginia,

and it's just an 18 or so minute drive from the Reagan airport that she was supposed to go to. James said that she didn't want to wait at the airport since it would be a whole four hours. So she requested he take her to the mall instead. The strange part about this is that this wasn't an area that Caitlyn was familiar with. So how did she even know this mall existed? And James also mentioned that Caitlyn was going to take the 25 or so minute Metro to the airport when it came time. But Lisa said that her daughter hadn't taken the Metro

since she was six years old. So it just seemed really odd and uncharacteristic. Like her mom was sure that she would not be able to figure out how to get on the Metro. Like she was really smart, she'd probably be able to figure it out, but she would never just say, I'll just take the Metro, because she didn't do that. Yeah, it's not a common thing that she did. And on top of that, she had her suit case

with her. So maybe shopping around the mall would help kill time, but she would be doing this with her luggage. As the day turned into the evening, Amber received a message on Facebook from Caitlin. This was a really odd way to communicate with her, so that was automatically weird to Amber. The message simply said, I can't come back, I cheated on you. The way that the message was written sounded so foreign to Amber. It wasn't Kaitlyn's style or speech. Also, Kaitlyn would have never said these things on Facebook. If she really did in fact cheat, she would have called Amber and explained what happened,

because they had been dating for years and had been friends for much longer. Also, they were engaged, so they were very open with each other about everything that went on in their lives. So Amber really feels that Caitlin never would have skipped the flight for this reason and also wouldn't have told her about cheating in this way. Shortly after at 7.15 pm, so an hour and a half after her flight was scheduled

and nearly six hours after James said he dropped Caitlin off, Lisa received two more texts from Caitlin. The first said, I'm staying with a friend, and the second said, I need some time alone. Lisa was completely stunned and confused by this. First of all, Caitlin was a day and a half away from starting her very first day of cosmetology school. Something she had been looking forward to for years. And secondly, the text just didn't sound like her daughter. Usually, Caitlyn was a very happy and excited texture and often used emojis. But since that afternoon, all of her texts were very cold and flat.

And not just that, but the text came in separate messages. And I'm sure most of us can understand this, but people have a pretty specific way of texting, you know, either you are a paragraph person or you're a multi-textor or you're like me and horrible at texting. You are. So either you send everything you need to say in one message or you spread it out. I personally spread out my text in a couple texts, but Caitlin was the opposite, and everyone in her family says this very same thing. The only time that she would double

text is if she misspelled something. But all the texts that came in that afternoon were separated, not paragraphical. It just wasn't Caitlin's style at all, and it came on so suddenly. So, this leads us to believe that somebody has Caitlyn's phone and they are texting her family members and her fiance about what's going on with her, but at the same time, it doesn't sound like Caitlyn and this person obviously knows about Caitlyn's life. And that's what's so confusing is they're like this doesn't sound like her but they're not like then this has to be somebody else because who would that be?

You know they don't they don't think that some things quite wrong yet they just think that okay why is she acting like this like what's going on? They just have no idea. Lisa tried to call Caitlyn again but to no avail. Once again all calls were going to voicemail. As if she turned on her phone just to send those texts and then turned it back off, which is just very odd. Caitlyn loved talking about everything, even when things were going wrong. She wasn't

the type to bottle up things or shut out her loved ones. She also always had her phone on her because she loved to talk and keep in touch with people. This is when Amber called Lisa and explained the message she had gotten from Caitlyn on Facebook. She also told Lisa that she and Caitlyn weren't in a fight and were on really good terms as usual. And in fact, things were going really great. And Caitlyn's family backed this up because they said that all week, she was in high spirits.

But when Lisa got home, she and her sister called the airline and asked if Caitlin's plane ticket had been used and it hadn't. When James spoke with Lisa, he said he had no idea how Caitlin wouldn't have arrived at the airport and that Caitlin hadn't mentioned meeting up with a friend at all. He also said that he gave Caitlin $20 to get on the Metro. So why hadn't she? That night, Lisa, Lisa's sister, Pam, and Gabby all tried calling the Metro as well as the police department, but nothing could be done at that point.

Police said that Caitlin, being 19, was legally an adult, and it sounded like she just needed some space and was with a friend. And she was more than allowed to do that. And this is so frustrating because from the outside, it does look like Kaitlyn was just doing her own thing. But her family knew that something just wasn't right, and they just had to wait. And it wasn't until a couple days later, Monday, December 7, 2015, the day Caitlin was supposed to start school,

when the police finally got involved. Lisa headed to the Spotsylvania County, Virginia Police, which was the county in which she lived in, and went to officially report Caitlin missing. And while she was at the station filling out the report, police pulled her aside with some cryptic information. That day, they discovered Caitlin's luggage on the side of a road in a drainage ditch

on River Road in a very rural wooded area. A road crew who had been doing work in that area reported the suitcase to police. And when police opened it, Caitlin's belongings and wallet with her identification were inside. The location of her luggage was over 50 miles, or 80 kilometers, away from the airport.

And we did post a map on our social media pages so you guys can have a visual, but basically her luggage was dumped in a rural area off of Highway 95, which would have been the highway that she and James would have taken to get to the airport. River Road is not directly on the way since you'd have to pop off the highway and drive in Linda Bit, but it's still between James's house and Lisa's house, as well as between James's house and the airport, if that makes sense. If it doesn't, check our socials and season visuals. But yeah, so basically, if you're coming from where James lives and you're going north east towards the airport, to get to where her luggage was,

you would just get off Highway 95 where the Spotsylvania Town Center is in Fredericksburg where her mom lives, and turn left and go a couple blocks, and you essentially just keep driving down that road for eight minutes and you're at where her luggage was. So it's not that far off of Highway 95 is my point. It's about 30 minutes into the hour and a half drive from James's house to the airport. And the weird thing is that both James and Kaitlyn knew this area because remember, Kaitlyn was raised in Fredericksburg before they moved down to Caroline County for just a couple years. This is where her mom lived, this is where James worked, so this was a very familiar area for both of them. It's interesting to me that her luggage was found so close to where like she grew up,

close to her mom's house, close to James's house, but so far away from the actual airport. That's why it's so weird, because it's like, okay then, did she even go up to the airport? Yeah, exactly. Like, what evidence is there to tell us that she was even close to the airport? Oh, and there's so so much more crazy stuff ahead. So, going back to what was in Caitlyn's suitcase, her wallet was inside with her Arizona license, as well as her debit cards and also her phone charger and her toothbrush were also inside. But all of her clothes, along with her phone and her high school diploma, were missing. One of the wheels was broken and it looked as if the suitcase was thrown from a moving

car. That's how everyone close to the story explains how it looked. It was banged up and busted, which it hadn't been before. With that discovery of Caitlyn's luggage, police were now taking this case very seriously, and started questioning everyone close to Kaitlin Aikens. One of the first people they interviewed was Kaitlin's ex-stepfather, James Branton, and he told the same story that he told Lisa, that he had dropped Kaitlin off at the Springfield Mall near J.C. Penny upon her request at around 1pm so that he could get back home and time to go to work in Fredericksburg at 3.45pm.

And to confirm this story, detectives requested surveillance videos from the mall as well as the metro station and the airport. That same day, Monday, December 7th, while detectives waited for this footage, a grisly discovery was made in Spazolvania County. A blonde tattooed young woman was found in the front seat of a car shot to death. Detectives originally believed it could be Caitlin because it matched her description, but they soon found out that it was actually the body of 21-year-old Heather Sikon. She was a waitress at Red Robin in Fredericksburg, and Lisa actually knew who she was, but she

wasn't a friend of Caitlyn's. It was just a huge surprise because this wasn't something that happened in Spotsovania County, and now within two days of each other, a 19-year-old girl is missing, and a 21-year-old is murdered, it worried the community of 28,000 people that a serial killer could possibly be on the loose. After detective search for parallels in the two cases, they determined that Caitlin and Heather didn't have mutual friends, and that more than likely, their cases were not connected. A little bit about Heather's case for those who are interested. She was found in her car, parked at the bottom of a driveway and rural Spatylvania, about 30 minutes away from her home.

The owner of the house, whose driveway she was parked next to, had seen her in the car slumped over and called police. The homeowner didn't know her or her vehicle and knew something had to be wrong and it turns out that she had suffered one gunshot wound to the back of her head which killed her. It was quickly discovered that Heather had recently reported to her friends that she had a female stalker and she even posted on her Facebook four days before her murder. I swear, this bitch has no fucking life, with three angry emojis. What happened that night was Heather was going to buy some marijuana from a 29 year old man

named Joshua Williams. They had met previously and supposedly began a physical relationship, which enraged the mother of his two children, 24-year-old Danielle Long. She had confronted Heather on at least one occasion and one day she called Heather 137 times. To get rid of Heather, Danielle convinced Joshua that Heather was working with the police, which there is no evidence of. So that night, Joshua shot her in the back of her head when they met up. He was convicted of first-degree murder for this and was sent to prison for 38 years

to life for the crime. And Danielle was charged with accessory to murder and conspiring to commit perjury. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison. So this is why police pretty much knew that Caitlyn and Heather's cases were not related. At this point, detectives wondered if Caitlyn had been killed, and dumped into either the Mott's run reservoir or the Rapa Hannock River, which those were both right near the road her luggage was discovered on. So they did a helicopter search of this whole region, and they even did a flare system search, which is basically a thermal imaging camera search of this area, but nothing was discovered.

And this search had gone on through the first week that Caitlin was missing, and no new information was coming in. So detectives went back to questioning those that were close to Caitlyn and spoke with the high school friends that she had been hanging out with two days before she disappeared. They told the detectives that they were all hanging out playing drinking games and getting kind of hammered, and they all ended up hooking up and being intimate. And to be clear, it was a guy and a girl who were dating, so they had a threesome. Both the guy and the girl whose names we don't know told police that the next morning everyone was feeling really weird and bad about what happened, especially knowing that Caitlyn was engaged to Amber.

They all talked about it and it was kinda awkward awkward and Caitlin was visibly upset about it. She wasn't saying much but they could tell that she was regretting it as much as they did. But when they dropped her off at home, she didn't mention any of this to her sister or her mom. She did text her best friend Kevin who lived in the area and said, her boyfriend got really, really, really drunk and then she kissed me and then he kissed me.

They did everything to me and each other. I don't know how to feel or anything. I've been depressed and crying all day. So this kind of makes things take a weird turn because Caitlyn telling Amber that she wasn't coming back because she cheated seems like it could be true at this point. Yeah, I mean, if something like this happened, you never know if Caitlyn was so regretful or felt so guilty about it that she just, she couldn't face Amber. On top of this, on the morning of Caitlyn's disappearance, before she got to James' house,

she was messaging with a friend on Facebook and said, I don't want to be here and I don't want to be there. Indicating that, she didn't want to stay in Virginia, but she also didn't want to go back to Arizona. When investigators found this, they felt that maybe she really was in the area staying with a friend and she was fine. So they started going to places in the area that Caitlyn was known to frequent and questioned more of her friends, but this turned up nothing. So, they started going to places in the area that Caitlin was known to frequent, and question more of her friends.

But this turned up nothing. But the following week, so two weeks after Caitlin disappeared, detectives were finally granted Caitlin's cell phone records, and everything changed. Police discovered that at 2 p.m. on December 5th, when Lisa had received a text from Caitlin's phone, saying she was at the airport and her battery was dying, her phone was panged at a tower in Fredericksburg, and to be specific, it was just five miles from where her suitcase was found, which again was a whole 50 miles or 80 kilometers from the Reagan airport.

At this time, they also finally had all the security tapes that they needed to search and see if Caitlin was actually where her stepfather James said that she was, which by then, they knew wasn't true anyways because of her cell phone records. But after scouring the tapes, they didn't find James, his Jeep, or Caitlin outside the JC Penney's like James had said, and there are actually two cameras outside of the JC Penney, and they weren't caught on either of them. Caitlin wasn't seen anywhere in the mall at the metro station or in the airport that day at all.

Of course, now police think about James in a story, because there's no way that he's telling the truth. But the reason this was so strange to police was because he was being extremely cooperative the entire time. He answered every phone call, gave every detail they asked him, and they genuinely believed him to be a worried father. But because none of this was lining up anymore, they asked him to come down for yet another interview. Which this is just so weird, because it's not just like Caitlyn took a taxi and her phone ping near her luggage which means she lied

about going to the airport. But now James is lying. So why is James lying? Yeah, exactly. And I get it. You know, some people can come off like we just covered a case Christian Longo and a lot of people thought that he was very genuine and a good guy but turns out he was a total piece of shit So I don't really understand why police do this why they Assume that somebody's a good person just because they're Seemingly acting genuine because it's like until you know you can't really label anybody Exactly and by the way we covered Christian Longo on our Patreon so that's a bonus episode

But yeah, it's like people can be very deceiving So detective Marshall who was the lead investigator on this case, casually called James and asked him if he would take a polygraph test, simply so they could rule him out and carry on. And James agreed. This was scheduled after the Christmas holiday, the following week on December 29th. And Caitlyn's family said that this was really hard to celebrate with Caitlyn nowhere to be found, but they did their best to make it normal and they just had a really tough time doing that on Christmas. A few days later, on the day of James' polygraph test, James called into the station and explained

to Detective Marshall that he wasn't going to be coming in after all Because he spoke with his attorney and the attorney told him not to do the polygraph test since they're looking at him as a Suspect and this completely be willed or detective Marshall because he wasn't currently looking at James as a suspect He simply wanted to rule him out, considering he was the last person to see Caitlyn and he was so close to her. And the fact that James didn't want to take this test was very suspicious to the detective. He didn't understand why he wouldn't want to clear his name and carry on, but James hung up the phone. And we've seen this before in a lot of other cases with polygraph tests.

Any attorney, if you ask any attorney, they're going to tell you don't ever take a polygraph test because a lot of the time we know that the science behind polygraph tests can be deceiving and not correct. So sometimes that can be used against you and people believe that it shouldn't be. Exactly. that can be used against you and people believe that it shouldn't be. Exactly, and also detectives can kind of coerce you, and we've seen that happen many times as well, so I do understand why he didn't want to take it, but at the same time you're like, please take it. Right, and the detective is just thinking, hey man, we're just trying to clear your name, so why don't you take it. Right. With all of that said though, when police looked into James' phone records,

it was determined that when he sent the text message to Lisa, saying that he had dropped Kaitlyn off, his phone pinged in the area of his home. And sure, maybe he texted Lisa when he got home, but this text was sent at 1.52pm, less than an hour after he supposedly dropped Caitlyn off. The mall is almost an hour and a half away from his house, so he wouldn't have been home in time to send this text message from his house. Even stranger, as that the location in which Caitlyn's phone pinged just four minutes later, was in that location we mentioned earlier just five miles from where the luggage was found. Meaning that her phone was texting from a location that was nearly 30 minutes north of where James' phone was texting from. At 7.15pm, when Caitlin's phone texted her mom, Lisa, saying that she was staying with

a friend in needed space, these were sent from Stafford, which is one town north of Fredericksburg, so less than 15 miles or 24 kilometers from her luggage. Meanwhile, James' phone pinged at his house the entire day. So that means the whole day. Every time that he received a text or a call or whatever, the whole day it was at his house. So yeah, like he said, maybe he did it when he got home. But there wasn't enough time between what it would have taken to go from the mall to

his house, from to send that text from his house. And according to the phone records, his phone didn't leave his house. Right, and you're probably thinking, oh well maybe he just accidentally left his home, his phone at home that day. Well, no, because he texted Lisa exactly when he supposedly dropped Kaitlyn off. Well, he said, I dropped Kaitlyn off, which could mean that at some point he did, he didn't say I just dropped her off. But still, there's just not enough time because he dropped her off, he said he dropped her off just after 1pm. So that was his story to police to lease it to everybody else.

And then, less than 50 minutes later, into an hour and 20 minute drive where the traffic wasn't too bad, you're already home and able to text? This doesn't make sense. So since James wouldn't take a polygraph test and his statements proved to be false, police got a search warrant for his house. They searched his entire home, his vehicles, his 10-acre property, and the swamp behind his home. But there was no sign of Caitlin or any of her belongings, and there was no evidence that anything had happened there. They did confiscate some computers as well as his cell phone and a bunch of other stuff. But weirdly enough, James was very, very technologically

savvy. So he had installed his own software on his phone. And this meant that police and other experts have been unable to enter into his phone at all. So there's no way we could know if he sent anywhere text messages or if he had any weird information on his phone like we just to this day still don't know. When looking into his phone records deeper, the detective noticed that James never tried to call Caitlin that day or any other day after she went missing. So even though his stepdaughter is missing and his ex-wife is incredibly worried,

he didn't try her phone even once. And to make James seem even more suspicious, police looked into his alibi for the day that Caitlin went missing. Remember how he said he had work at 3.45 pm that day? He never went in. He called out sick that day. But that Saturday evening, when Lisa was asking him exactly where he dropped off Caitlin, he told her that he was at work. So that was an outright lie. Yeah, he's clearly a liar. He's lying to everybody. It's just there's so many holes in his story like nothing he said was true. So I just... I'm so confused by him in his whole story.

Like the fact that he called out stick to work is really, really weird. Yeah, very suspicious. Police and Caitlin's entire family believe that James holds the key to this case, that he knows exactly what happened to Kaitlyn. Police have the theory that either James helped Kaitlyn run away, or the more popular theory, that he did something to her, and she ended up dead, and then he covered it up. Lisa and the rest of Kaitlyn's family are very confident that Caitlyn wouldn't just run away on her own, and they believe something had to have happened to her. Because she would

never go this long, she couldn't even go a day without talking to her family and friends. One weird thing that police discovered was that Caitlyn used an unknown, encrypted messaging app, but since they didn't have her phone, they were unable to determine if she had been using the app that week, and if so, who was she talking to? Her sister Gabby also has a theory that Caitlin met someone online who she had been talking to, and instead of going back to Arizona,

she went to go meet this person, like maybe she was having cold feet on the engagement and wanted to explore another option, but then this person did something bad to her. And I mean, this still doesn't line up with the whole James situations to me though, like I think her meeting up with a stranger and meeting foul play that way makes sense in a lot of ways, like it makes sense because she did cheat and she told Amber that she cheated. So it seems so probable. But what about James' phone being at home all day and him calling out to work and his

car not showing up on the cameras. And is he really willing to be considered a suspect in this case and have his name slandered all over the internet to keep Caitlin's secret that she was going off to meet someone else? And why would Caitlin want to appear to go missing and make her family worried sick? She was so excited to be an aunt and she loved her family. And why tell her mom that she was getting on the plane if she wasn't? Like why even send that text?

I just feel like it had to be someone texting for her. And I'm just gonna say it. From looking at screenshots, James appears to be the very kind of texture that was coming through Caitlin's phone the afternoon she disappeared. Also, why get rid of your luggage if you're running away? Like that just doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, you wouldn't get rid of your personal belongings or your luggage. And again, why make it look like you're missing? Maybe have James cover up for you for a couple days

while you see if this person is someone you like. But then tell your family, I met this awesome person. Like she wouldn't just be like, I'm gonna ditch my whole life to go meet up with someone and never talk to my family again. Yeah, that would never happen. That just doesn't seem like Caitlin's personality. She would never leave her family in the dust and lead this secret life. And she, I mean obviously she went to Virginia to meet her nephew as

well, but a big reason why she was going to Virginia was to get her diploma. Exactly. She had something to look forward to. She had gotten into this Cosmetology School. She was about to start. There's no way that she was just going to let all that be ruined. So as far as the James theory goes, at first I'm like, well why get rid of her clothes and her phone and her diploma? And maybe if it was James who had something to do with her disappearance and maybe he killed her, maybe he got rid of her clothes and her diploma in her phone separately to make it look like maybe she took those things and ran away because she needed her diploma.

But then at the same time it's like why leave the wallet, you need your wallet. Yeah, right. And I mean, James doesn't seem, in my opinion, he doesn't seem like a stupid person. So if he did commit this crime, I believe that he would have been able to cover it up. And just nothing really adds up with James here. It doesn't add up at all. So I think that maybe during the few hours that Caitlyn was at James' house before they were supposed to head to the airport, they got to talking and maybe she brought up the fact that she cheated. You know, even though they didn't have the best relationship, maybe she felt like he could that she cheated. You know, even though they didn't have the best relationship,

maybe she felt like he could give her some kind of unbiased advice, because we know she didn't tell her sister and her mom, but she did tell her friend Kevin. So maybe she felt like she could tell James, and then something happened, and she either died on accident or on purpose, and James covered it up. Well, I mean, if she did tell James about the fact that she cheated, maybe he got it in his mind that he could also hook up with her since she's no longer like a committed

person and maybe made a pass at her in some way, we just really don't know. I don't know the character of James, so I can't say that for sure. That's kind of a good theory. I mean, even though they had known each other for so long, it's like, we don't know him, we don't know his patterns, we don't know, we don't know, maybe he's creepy. Right, and what, and the fact that, like, if Lisa had found out that James

had possibly made a pass at Caitlin, that would not be good for James in any way. So the lengths of which he would probably have to go to cover that up would be extreme. We know for a fact that in Caitlyn's teen years, she did not trust James, and those words came directly from her best friend, Kevin. Kevin said she did not trust him. She wanted to move out of the house as soon as she could, and at the very least, he knew that James was verbally abusive. Was he sexually abusive? Possibly. Yeah, I mean, we don't know. All we know knew that James was verbally abusive. Was he sexually abusive? Possibly?

Yeah, I mean, we don't know. All we know is that James did, in fact, rub Caitlyn the wrong way. If Caitlyn was, in fact, murdered, it's heavily believed that two people were involved. Firstly, police believed that her luggage was thrown out of a moving car due to the one wheel being broken off and the scuffing on the luggage. But someone driving on a rural road probably couldn't throw a whole big suitcase out the window while they're driving. But if there were two people in the car, the one not driving could have easily just tossed

it out. And then there's the whole factor that the suitcase wasn't found until two days later. So it could have been dropped there at any time within those two days, but it was probably done that afternoon since Caitlin's phone pinged in that very same area at around 2pm. The two person involved theory could also explain why Caitlin and James' phones pinged 30 minutes away from each other at the same time. Lisa has said that James was a loner type and he really didn't have any friends at all. The closest person to him was his mother, and she believes

that his mother would have helped James cover up a crime that he committed. Another crazy part of this whole mother helping him theory is that I read that he owned another piece of property in the area, not sure exactly where unfortunately, and his mom lives in the house. And because of this, police legally can't search it, but that means that her phone and her diploma and clothes, or potentially even her body, could be on his other property. But police haven't been able to check it,

which to me is just insane, because at maybe he wouldn't be dumb enough to put it on his own property, but like, oh my God, he has a whole other property and they can't search it. Yeah. So I think that it's very likely that something happened,

James got rid of Caitlin's body and luggage as well as her phone diploma and clothes, which I'm not sure why they were separated still, and texted everyone from Caitlin's phone while he was doing this. Meanwhile, maybe his mom was at his house texting Lisa from James' phone, but then I guess that doesn't explain the whole two-person theory regarding the luggage being tossed out the window.

But I can't think of any other way that this could have been done. I just know that James is hiding something. He just has to be. I think that mothers and fathers do a lot of things for their kids, and if James is really like a mama's boy and he's real close with his mom, I could see how this could be a thing, and it does make sense how are you going to toss luggage out of a moving car when you're driving? Your hands are on the wheels, you don't have hands to do that. So it does make sense that there could have been another person and it very well could have been his mother. But if there were two people in the car throwing the luggage out the window, that probably,

I mean, her phone panged near her luggage at that time, so then who was texting from James his phone at his house? Right, that part I can't explain and I don't really know. All I know for sure in this case is that James lied. He lied multiple times. His car was not found on the security footage and his story just doesn't add up. Oh, another thing that I totally forgot to bring up. So I also read that James never returned to his job as an insurance agent.

Like he called out that day and just never went back, and then about seven months later, he got a new job, meaning he was out of work from December 2015 until the following summer, which is so weird, like that doesn't make any sense to me, how could he take all that time off work and why? And why that specific day do you quit your job? You know what I mean? The day that your stepdaughter, your ex stepdaughter, goes missing, you quit your job. But as far as I know, he didn't even quit.

Like he literally just called out sick and then just didn't show up to work ever again. Like he just never went back. Like was he maybe so just incapable of doing anything because he killed Caitlyn and then his mom kind of supported him for all that time until he was able to get over it? Like I just don't even know. Well think about this, in the very beginning of this episode, we talked about the fact that James was very depressed and he was very angry. And so if he did in fact kill Caitlyn, maybe he just went into a

spiral of deep, deep depression and guilt and he just couldn't return back to work. And I also think about, thank you for bringing that up because I also think about he was really angry every time that, you know, after the divorce, he was really angry, he was really depressed maybe he took his anger for he and Lisa splitting up out on Caitlin. It's very possible. I mean there's just so many different possibilities but you have to go back to the facts. I mean what are the facts in this case? What do we know for sure and everything else is speculation.

Meaning that it's important to follow the facts that we do know, which is again, James is a liar. When Caitlin Aikens was last seen, she was 5'4", 122 lbs and had blonde hair. Again, she had her belly button, nose, septum and lip pierced and she had small gauges in both of her ears. She had a tattoo of five butterflies in blue wind on her left forearm and another tattoo of three bursting red stars on her foot. Today, she would be 24 years old.

If you have any information, please call the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Department at 540-507-7200. 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 next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. God, this case is just so weird, like I just don't know what to think, but I definitely think that James was involved, like there's just no other way and it sucks because he's just living his life and he clearly lied about a lot of shit and he's just carrying on

and they can't do anything about it until they have more. I have that exact same feeling and if you guys feel the exact same way, make sure you head over to our Facebook discussion group which is going West discussion group on Facebook of course and let us know what your theories are. Yeah join the group, let's talk about it because I was going crazy researching this case like I'm just baffled by it. Also make sure you follow us on our other social media accounts, our Instagram, at Going West Podcast, and our Twitter at Going West Pod. And thank you so much to everybody

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