Introducing: 10 to Life with Annie Elise

With over 500 million downloads, 10 to Life is one of the leading true crime podcasts and YouTube channels covering the cases everyone is talking about — and the ones no one else is. If you love deep dives, real-time updates, and the full story behind the headlines, don’t miss 10 to Life. 🎙️ Listen to 10 to Life every Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/channel/annie-elise/id6463443612 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4yLKPOt94HdrzVUoqEpZVa?si=055b7fa380c444ec 📺 Watch full episodes on YouTube at YouTube.com/annieelise http://youtube.com/@annieelise

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Hey everyone, I'm Annie Elise. Now wherever you are, all I ask is that really quickly you just take a second to follow on either Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, or if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe on YouTube because it's the only way that you'll be notified when we release new episodes every week. And listen, you're gonna want to make sure that you get that alert because we have got some really wild cases in store for you. Kind of like the one I have for you today. Only a few years back, on May 8th of 2019, at 7:15 a.m., Chantel Oakley was just waking up and wanted to go check on her 15-year-old daughter Riley Crossman. She had barely gotten to see Riley the day before because Chantel

• 1:11Speaker 01

  works a lot. The day before, Chantel usually would have worked two shifts, a day shift at one job and a night shift at another. But she was feeling a little under the weather, so she went home early from her first job. Now, she couldn't afford to miss both of her shifts for the day, so her hope was that she could stay home from her first job, rest and recover, take a nap, and then once her second shift was about to start, she would feel well enough to power through and make a little bit of money that night. When Chantel laid down for her nap, she didn't set an alarm. Her plan was for her daughter Riley to wake her up when she got home from school. And sure enough, when Riley got home from school at around 3:30 p.m., she woke her up. They chatted for a short time, not too long, and then Chantel got ready for work.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  When Chantel got home from her shift that night at around 10:00 PM, Riley's door was shut. So Chantel decided to go to bed. Nothing crazy, nothing out of the ordinary. So now, fast forward to the next morning when Chantel went to say good morning to Riley before Riley had to get to school by 7:45 AM. But when she knocks on Riley's door, there's no answer. Now, this wasn't totally out of the ordinary. Chantel figured that maybe Riley was up and about early. I mean, kids get busy. She was busy and their schedules just weren't lining up. No big deal. I mean, after all, Riley had to be at school by 7:45 every morning, and it's only a short walking distance away. Plus, if Riley left the house to head to school early, it would give her a chance to get there early and spend some time with her friends

• 2:40Speaker 01

  or her boyfriend, a boy named Hayden Lacy. So Chantel kind of metaphorically kicked herself for not getting up five minutes earlier so that she could see her daughter, but she promised herself that she would make sure to spend some quality time with Riley later that night once she got home from work. Well, then, while she was at work, Chantel got a call from her mom. She said that Riley hadn't come home from school at her usual time. I'm Annie Lys, and this is 10 to Life. Let's jump right in.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Now Riley's grandma didn't live with them, but on the 7th, her grandma was over at their house for a few hours until around 7:00 PM. So I'm kind of assuming that maybe every day she would come over after the kids all got home from school to watch them for a little bit, either until Chantel or her boyfriend Andy got home from work, something like that. So while it's a little weird that Riley wasn't home yet, it still wasn't something that instantly freaked everyone out. I mean, Riley is practically a kid, and kids get distracted and lose track of time. So in typical mom fashion, Chantel kind of just shoots off this text message to Riley asking, "Where are you?" But it didn't go through. And an actual chill went down her spine. Why would Riley's phone not be working?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  So Chantel tried to call her, but it immediately went to voicemail, almost like her phone had been turned off. Now by this point, panic started to set in. None of this felt right at all. But remember, Chantel was still at work at this point. And, you know, I understand many people may think that she should have left, but I think it's clear that Chantel loved her daughter and wanted to help her. But also at this point, she was trying not to overreact. I mean, there could be a million reasons why Riley was MIA. And let's be honest, too. Bills needed to be paid. She didn't want to lose out on pay for the night if it was just a case of, you know, Riley's phone being dead, or if she had no service wherever she was, but was really okay. She didn't want to overreact.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  So since Riley's school was just across the street, Chantel asked her mom to go over there and see if she could find Riley. And that's what she did. She headed right over to the school. But she had no luck. There was no sign of Riley. So now, Chantel decided that something really wasn't right here, and she left work to go figure out what was going on. She met her mom at the school, hoping that they could work together and find Riley. And right around the same time that they got there, a school bus full of kids had gotten back from a field trip that they had been on that day. And one of the students on the bus was Riley's boyfriend Hayden. Chantel perked up right away. I mean, if anyone knew where Riley was, he would.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  But unfortunately, Hayden told Chantel that he hadn't seen or heard from Riley all day. She wasn't even at school by the time he left on that field trip. And this was confirmed only a little bit later when the school called to notify Chantel that Riley had been absent from school all day. And that was when Chantel knew something terribly bad had happened. And she called 911 to report her daughter Riley as missing. Now, Chantel never for a minute believed that Riley had left on her own or was running away. Riley wouldn't do that to her family, and she wouldn't leave her friends behind. But the police weren't so convinced. And unfortunately, we have seen this many times before in missing kids cases.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  And their working theory, at first at least, was that Riley must have left on her own. She must have just been a runaway. But either way, they knew that they had to find Riley. So they started piecing together some of her last movements. And in doing that, they learned that, like we know, Riley came home on the 7th, woke up her mom for work around 3:30 PM, then Riley's grandma was at the house while Chantel was at work until around 7:00 PM. Chantel didn't get back until around 10:00 PM, and that's when she saw Riley's light on and her door shut. But she didn't actually see Riley then. So we know, at the very absolute least, that Riley was alive and well at 7:00 PM, when her grandma would have last seen her.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Chantel's boyfriend Andy also said that he and the two youngest kids were watching a movie downstairs. And he had said that he had asked Riley to join them that night, but Riley said that she just didn't want to watch the movie. She wasn't in the mood, and that was kind of it. And it was the last time that he ever saw her, too. The next morning, he got up for work around 5:00 or 5:30 AM, which, that was early enough that nobody else was up, and he frankly didn't really expect anyone else to be awake. But it didn't ring any alarm bells when Riley didn't come out of her room. He didn't even realize that she was missing until later that same day. And we know that she was in contact with other people after both her grandma and her mom's boyfriend saw her last. Because Riley's boyfriend Hayden told the investigators that he was on FaceTime with

• 7:41Speaker 01

  her until around 10:30 PM. Another friend told the detective that they texted back and forth with Riley until around midnight. So that's two people who confirmed that Riley was alive and well. And then there were the little things that weren't confirmed, but people were saying anyway. Riley and her family lived in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. And Berkeley Springs is an extremely small town. Like, last year, the official population was a little over 750 people. I mean, it's that kind of small town where everyone knows everyone. And you know how small towns go. They're all about gossip, and they're all about getting in each other's business and guessing at the things that you don't know so well.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  So lots of people were going to the police with tips, and they weren't all good tips. They weren't all the truth. Countless people were saying that they saw Riley walking on the side of the road, or even that they saw her at a party the night before her mom reported her missing and that she was fine. There were a bunch of different sightings, all over the place. But each time the police would follow up and try to verify it, they'd end up with nothing. Then there were some other rumors about Riley and a former best friend of hers named Kayla. Apparently, she and Kayla had been besties. I mean, seriously, they did everything together, just inseparable. But then one day, they got into a fight about something.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  I'm not sure what exactly, but whatever it was, it was big and serious enough that it ended their whole friendship, just right then and there. And I don't just mean like they went their separate ways. They now hated each other. In fact, before she disappeared, one of the last things that Riley did was meet up with some other friends of hers so they could burn this box of Kayla's belongings that she had left over at her house. They were like now mortal enemies. So I guess people wondered if maybe Kayla could have found out about this burn box situation and then hurt Riley because of it. I mean, we've definitely seen crazier things, right? Or maybe Riley was so upset about the friendship breakup that she ran away because of it.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Neither one of those options sounded very realistic, but it was really all the detectives had to work with. So the police talked to Kayla's mom, specifically asking if she knew where she was during the night when it was believed that Riley went missing. And she was able to provide an alibi that they confirmed and verified. Kayla definitely didn't have anything to do with Riley's disappearance. Investigators were also taking a look around the last confirmed place that Riley was seen, her own house, because they wanted to see if there was anything there that could lead them a little closer to knowing where Riley could have gone. Now Riley was a teenage girl, and to put it bluntly, her room was a total disaster. You could hardly see the floor because of all of the clothes and the makeup that was just scattered everywhere.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  So for the investigators, that made it basically impossible to tell if there were any sort of signs of struggle, or if some of her stuff was maybe missing, like she packed a bag or something. I mean, it did look like there had been a struggle, but that's just kind of how Riley's room looked all the time.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  She's not back yet? You mind if we take a look in her bedroom?

• 10:48Speaker 02

  Has she ever disappeared before? She's didn't leave without me. She does not text me when I text her. What does she normally take with her when she leaves? Her phone. Her phone's not in here. It's not in here. She's gonna talk to you at that farm, right? I don't think I heard last night, or I mean, night before, anything, no reason she would leave. No.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  But one of the big items that investigators were trying to find within all of this mess was Riley's phone, which is nowhere to be found, so they figured that it was with her. But they did find something interesting in her room. Her wallet, which had her debit card in it, along with some cash. And this is obviously a big red flag, because if Riley had run away, she'd need at least the cash that she had on her to make it anywhere, right? I get leaving your wallet behind or your debit card behind, but you would for sure want the cash with you.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  This room we're going around, people telling us that she's straight to come home. I don't know if that's, I don't get how people do this now, but no, nothing like that. Okay. So she was, she wouldn't have to be here, I mean, there, or anything like that. They would, never like that. This is nothing. Yeah. I'm not wanting home. Right. She has to work. Yeah, you, you, they said she got her own family. No. They didn't want to come home. No. She was, she was, you can ask your grandma, she was here doing dishes and everything. Grandma's here until 7:30. Okay. Uh, Debbie. Right. Yeah. When's the last time you, you saw her? Oh.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Like nine, maybe tenish. At night? Yeah. And, and what, and what context was that? Oh, she was here in the house. She went to bed probably, well, I don't know what time she was bed, but she was, those kids were in the room by like nine thirty, nine, nine thirty. Did she leave in the morning? No, I left at four, I got up at four o'clock in the morning, left at five. Okay. Go to work.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Plus, no one in Riley's life believed that she had any reason to leave willingly. And those closest to her didn't seem suspicious in the slightest. When the police questioned her boyfriend Hayden, he seemed genuinely concerned about her well being. And his dad worked for the state highway patrol, so even if Hayden was up to something, his dad probably would have noticed and spoken up about it. Still, the authorities needed to cross every T and dot every I. So, they bring Hayden in for questioning, where he confirms Riley was FaceTiming with him until ten thirty PM.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Can you just, um, tell us when you were last FaceTiming?

• 13:16Speaker 02

  I was actually talking to her about TC trip, what was going on.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  And do you know exactly what time?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Ten thirty-ish.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  But then, the police ask Hayden if they could see his phone and look at some of his past conversations with Riley. Kind of, you know, see what they had talked about in the past. And get this, he deleted every single message between him and Riley. Every single one. Naturally, police have gone from not concerned about Hayden to a little bit concerned. But as soon as the detectives started pressuring Hayden, wanting to know what was up with those messages, his mother, who came with him, just fully butted in. According to Hayden's mom, he deleted text messages all the time. It was just a weird quirk for him. And it wasn't just him and Riley, it was texts with everyone. So, there really wasn't anything suspicious there.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And I will say this too, my sister Amy deletes text messages every day. She kind of uses her text history as her to do list, or things she knows she needs to follow up on. So, at any given moment throughout the day, she will have literally no text threads in her phone, because she deletes them once she responds to them, which- I personally have texts that go all the way back to probably like 2016. That's just my chaotic life, but people really do do that. So again, nothing really suspicious there. But apparently he also had a really bad habit of sending very disturbing messages to people and then deleting them because he believed that if anyone saw what he was saying, he could get into trouble. One of Riley's good friends claimed that Hayden was always threatening to take his

• 14:50Speaker 01

  own life and that he would say that to stop Riley from breaking up with him, to make her feel guilty and like she had to stay with him, which is very unhealthy. I mean, on one hand, it's manipulative and certainly not okay. And clearly he knew that he was in the wrong since he was deleting those messages. But on the other hand, he was young and this could have been some sort of cry for help. Both situations certainly unhealthy, but super sinister and manipulative and calculated or more of a young kid who's emotionally unbalanced and a cry for help. I don't know. But in any event, by now, the police weren't 100% sure that Hayden was telling the truth. But it also wasn't clear if he was lying either.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  There wasn't enough for them to hold him on or charge him with anything either, so they let him go. And then the detectives started to wonder if maybe Riley could have been kidnapped by a stranger sometime the next day, which sounds a little bit out there, I know, but hear me out. Berkeley Springs was near a major trucking route, so there were all of these truck drivers passing through or stopping for the night to sleep and just kind of going in and out. So again, I know it's kind of like this wild theory and maybe a little bit out there, but maybe Riley got up in the morning, got ready for school and then got snatched during that very short walk over to the school. It's just, I mean, it's impossible to say in part because so much time passed between when she actually went missing and when she was reported as missing.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  But also the police never issued an Amber Alert for her. They said it was because they didn't know enough information. They couldn't warn people to look for certain cars or anything and because they didn't know if she was in a car or in any sort of situation like that. And since they still thought that she could have been a runaway, they just never bothered to put the alert out. Which I do understand that decision as frustrating as it is. In order to fit the criteria to get the Amber Alert out, you need to at least have a license plate, some sort of description, a suspect, and they really were working off nothing at that point. But at the same time, it's a really tough spot because she still was a missing kid and you want all resources used.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Well, finally, on the evening of the 10th, three days since Riley was last seen, the investigators finally got a lead. To the detective's surprise, Hayden came back to the station. And he was very high energy, very nervous. The lead detective actually even used the word frantic to describe him. So they led him and his mom back into the interview room, and that's when Hayden dropped a bomb on them. He explained that when he got home after the first interrogation, he realized that when he put on his Apple Watch that day, the messages between him and Riley during their last conversation were still on there. They didn't get deleted when he removed them from his phone.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  And most importantly, some of the last text messages that Riley had ever sent Hayden showed that she was scared for her safety. On the night of the 7th, Riley had texted Hayden that her mom's boyfriend Andy had come into her room and that she was scared by this. But by this time, Hayden had already gone to sleep for the night, so he didn't see this message right away. Now, why Hayden hadn't mentioned these text messages literally the very moment he realized that Riley was missing? I don't know. Maybe he forgot about them after deleting their messages. Maybe he didn't think that it was relevant. I truly don't know. But now he was bringing them up. And regardless the reason, this was huge. This one, simple and short text message spoke volumes.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  What had Andy done to make Riley so scared of him that she basically sent this SOS text message to her boyfriend? The authorities wasted no time bringing in Andy for questioning. Now, of course, this wasn't the first time that the investigators had talked to him or talked to Chantel, her mom. However, this was the first time that they were taking a more serious look at him, now knowing what they did about Riley's text message. But when they asked him about the things that Riley said to Hayden, Andy was pretty casual about it. He tells investigators that he has no idea why she would say something like that. And he seemed pretty unfazed because according to him, there was nothing that she had to be scared of.

• 19:06Speaker 02

  What if I told you her last text to her boyfriend?

• 19:11Speaker 02

  We're saying, "Don't talk," because she still has the FaceTime one. Andy's in here. I'm afraid.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  That's what it said. What if I told you that? Obviously, that's crazy.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  100%. Obviously, that's crazy. There's no reason why it would ever be scary to me. She, she never was scared of you, ever. I can't put my hand on the Bible and tell you I saw those texts today. Well, obviously, because I knew the problem, it scared me. I never was about to lose you. Not when that was, she said you were in here and she was in her bedroom because the FaceTime was still on.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  I would never hear one. That's not what she's saying. I don't know, I would never have.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  I don't, don't know. Once in a while, I would, I would, I would, I would. Then why would she say that? I don't know, but she wasn't in her room. She might have been in my room for four floors at that point. No, this is way past your 9:30 time frame.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  I was downstairs at, at, after 9:30, so. Andy, I'm lying to you. I don't know what to tell you. Like, I don't know. I was not in her room for one, and for two, the kid's not scared of me. There's no reason for her to be scared of me. I've been there for, in her room for a year and a half.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  So the police then asked a question that should have been pretty simple and easy. Where were you on May 8th? And listen, before we get into that, if you're thinking about this like I am, I'm kind of like, okay, well, why are they just asking Andy this now? And I have to assume that it's because investigators didn't really think that Riley was in any real danger until a couple of days into this whole thing, which really does suck. But then, when they heard this whole text thing from Hayden, they knew that they needed to press harder. And they did. So Andy said he was at work all day. He worked on a construction site, so the cops should have been able to just check in with his boss or his coworkers and see if he was really there, which they did. And it turns out, he wasn't actually at work all day.

• 21:23Speaker 04

  Would you be surprised if you told me something completely different?

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Uh, maybe.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  What you said differently.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  Okay, um.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  This is one of these times you need to really sit down and think about what you're gonna say, okay? Um, cause what you told me is complete opposite of what you just said, okay? Well, it is, okay? Um, so do you want to rethink what you just told me? One thing I'm gonna not do to you is lie to you, I promise you that, I will never lie to you. I'm not gonna make up shit, okay? Don't do that to me.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  I'm not, trying to.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, you're not trying to. Let's try this again, let's go back, I know it's been a couple of days, I know a lot has happened. Okay, I get that, I understand that. Let's go back to Wednesday morning, let's go through this again and tell me what happened. Were you at that house the entire time fixing the shelves?

• 22:24Speaker 02

  No.

• 22:24Speaker 04

  Okay, where were you at?

• 22:26Speaker 02

  I was at, we at, I was at the other house.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  I went, you got some, we went to, got some, I went and got some more drugs.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Well, how did they know to randomly meet you in a parking lot?

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Well, I don't know, bet they didn't know the road to meet me in a parking lot, called them, like that.

• 22:40Speaker 04

  Okay, you're not, listen, bud, you're not being honest. Okay, you're not being honest with us.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  I know, but, but the drugs, uh.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  There's a lot.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  Okay, I don't wanna give, give people's names out, but.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  We're not arresting people.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  We're not here to arrest anybody for drugs, drug dealers in this, okay?

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  What I told you before, Riley. Riley? Or drug dealers. I would like to hope that in this hand you see your drug dealer friends and over here is Riley, but yet these people here, I wanna close up them and protect.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, no, I don't wanna protect them.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  So you're down there for about an hour and a half for him to come, what do you mean? And you get your stuff, you use your stuff, and then you go back to jail. Okay. Then what happens? You work the rest of the day. Okay.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Now, according to Andy, he has a perfectly normal explanation for why he wasn't at work all day. Get this. He says he simply left work because he had to go pick up some cocaine from a dealer. I mean, naturally, right? He told the police that he was gone for an hour and a half to two hours. Not very long at all, according to him. But through all of this, even though it is a very weird admission to the police, Andy apparently keeps forgetting that police can literally just ask his coworkers if this version of his story is true. And what do you know? His coworkers told the police that that wasn't actually true. He wasn't gone ninety minutes to two hours. He was actually gone for more like five hours.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  From about nine AM to two PM.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  And he gets back at roughly, he's probably two forty-five. So he was gone a while. For, for, almost five hours.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  So the police went back to Andy again and told him they had caught him in a lie. Not only had his coworkers contradicted him, but they also had surveillance footage showing he wasn't at work for those hours. And first, he was like, okay, yeah, my bad. It was actually around five hours. You're right, must've just, you know, lost track of time. And then to explain why he was gone for so long, he changed up his story again.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  What if I told you that in New York, that's an uphill? And you didn't buy drugs off anybody that day?

• 24:51Speaker 04

  See where I'm getting at? Hmm? Okay. We went from this story to this story, now we're gonna get a third story. Okay? This is one of these times you really need to think for what you're telling me. Okay, cuz you're not being honest. Remember when I told you about being honest? I'm not gonna just throw shit at you. Yeah. Okay? I'm not, I'm not here to do that to you. I'm not gonna insult you in any way, shape, or form. Please don't do that to me. Okay. Okay, I knew you weren't there. Okay? I know you didn't buy drugs off your cousin, and I know you didn't use them in that parking lot that day. Okay? Where did you go when you left? Went to my house to get the drugs. Okay. I already had them in my house. Okay. I already told you, you didn't tell.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  Okay. I still wanna tell you I had them in my house. So you left to drive back to get drugs? To come back to your drop site? Okay? Where was she at when you went home?

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Who?

• 25:46Speaker 04

  Chantel.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  She's at work.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  Okay, so nobody's home at that time?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Nobody.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  Okay, where are drugs at in your house when you go back to get them?

• 25:53Speaker 02

  Outside.

• 25:54Speaker 04

  Where at?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Outside.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  Whereabouts outside?

• 25:57Speaker 02

  Right there by the, uh, if you go near by my little, this is a shed, there's a funny little porch, there's a little, there's some bits, frames sitting there, probably frames behind there.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  Okay, so you go back home, you use your drugs, and then you go back to work, and then what?

• 26:13Speaker 02

  What was it?

• 26:14Speaker 04

  I'm just telling you the whole part about you being honest.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  I'm being honest with you. I've been honest with you. I thought you'd see if I didn't want to tell you.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  You're being somewhat honest. I mean, we're doing some polling to get some information about some drug activity, which I don't mean to give two shits about, but yet we're having trouble pulling that out of you.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Because I was worried about it, because we're in there.

• 26:32Speaker 04

  And I, and I told you I don't care about that.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  I didn't say that. You told us about the drug activity, what, two nights ago? No, it isn't. Did I arrest you for it? I didn't get anything.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  When investigators talked to Andy's coworkers, they told them something else that was very interesting. Apparently, Andy had told one of those coworkers that he was leaving work to meet with some girl. So they're like, girl, girl as in Riley, or girl as in someone else?

• 26:58Speaker 04

  Um, you know, the further along this is, whatever happens and whoever did this, you're the worst off the case for that person too.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Yes, I hope so.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  She was probably taken out of that house by somebody.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure somebody, she was taken, that way I feel because she'd be on my, she would be her mom.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  She was taken from that house, is what I'm saying. She didn't, she didn't wander off. She didn't pack a bag and take her clothes, take her glasses, take a cell phone charger, take all of her money, she had most of her money. Um, someone's gonna go.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  No, her money was still in the backpack.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, um, so like I said, if someone's gonna run away or do something, they're gonna make a little bit better effort, um, even for a fifteen year old.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  I agree.

• 27:37Speaker 04

  For a fifteen year old kid, they're gonna at least have the necessities.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  What if I told you her last text to her boyfriend were saying, "Don't talk," because she still has to FaceTime one? Andy's in here, I'm afraid. That's what I said. What if I told you that? I'll say that's crazy. I can put my hand on the Bible and tell you I saw those texts today. Well, I like to see him because I knew probably he was scared of me. I know she's. Not only that, she said you were in here and she was in her bedroom because the FaceTime was still on. I was never in her room. That's not what she's saying. I don't go in her room. Andy, I'm not lying to you. I was not in her room for one, and for two, your kid's not scared of her. There's no reason for her to be scared of me. I've been there for, in her life for a year and a half. Taking care of her, giving her the beach meetings.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  What we're saying, I get that, I hear you, but what we're saying is, that's what she's saying. So, obviously, to her, he's afraid of something.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  The way, the way your mother, your mother will tell you that it's not true. I'm telling you, I read that with my own eyes today. I don't know. So, you see where that puts us? Yeah, I understand, but the kid's not scared of me. I don't understand how you guys can say that. That she's not, that's your grandmother.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  That's what she is saying. She's saying that's why we're saying that. We don't know what goes on behind closed doors when, you know, you and Chantel are there, or Chantel and Riley are there, or we don't know. Okay, but obviously, in her mind, she's afraid of you. Would you agree it doesn't make sense? Because it doesn't make sense at all. So, does she have any reason to say that?

• 29:10Speaker 02

  No.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  Why would she say that?

• 29:11Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Has she been hateful towards you? Does she hate you?

• 29:14Speaker 02

  No, she don't hate me. She loves me.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  So, I'm asking you, I don't know that. Does she argue with you?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  No, ever. We haven't.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  She ever, how say you curse you out, nothing?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Never, nothing. A year and a half, nothing.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  Okay, so it sounds like to me she does love you so heartily.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Okay, so why would she say that?

• 29:30Speaker 02

  I don't know. A year and a half, we have not had one conflict.

• 29:33Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Me and the boy, yeah, we have.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Okay, but there's never been anything, like you said, a year and a half, or the last several weeks, several months, several days, nothing that's, you were like, oh, yeah, I read about it one time, she wanted this, and I told her no, maybe she got mad, and she's.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Nothing. See where that puts us, right? Yeah, I understand. I understand what you guys are driving. I'm not mad that you guys are doing your job.

• 29:53Speaker 04

  I mean, that's the last message he has from her.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Well, I know that you guys are doing your job. I know you're doing your job, but. There's nothing I can think of. He wants to do her job, that's, that's what we're doing. I'm asking you to drop off, I'm not bad. You guys, don't, I think you're a little pissed off, but nothing, there's nothing that I can think of. Of should be mad at me for, or should be upset at me, or scared of me, or anything would be. He didn't go in that room? No. She still had FaceTime one too. Okay, well, I wasn't in that room.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Now, as bad as all of this looked, none of this was a smoking gun. It still didn't prove that Andy actually had anything to do with Riley's disappearance. So, with no arrests to make, it was back to the drawing board. The police were back to investigating, and the community also came together to try and help however they could. On May 15th, a week after Riley first went missing, the community put together a huge search party while the FBI also had teams in the air and was going through all of these really heavily wooded areas. The volunteers were hopeful. They were still holding on to positive attitudes, thinking that they would find Riley safe and sound. And in total, there were 300 people doing a search, which is absolutely incredible.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Because remember, this town had a population of just about 700 people. So basically, just under half the town was out there searching for Riley. That is remarkable. Still, by the end of the day, they hadn't found anything. So on the following day, everyone came together once again. They were going to keep trying until they actually found her. They weren't gonna let her just disappear and never be found again. They also finally brought in a new kind of searcher that they hadn't brought in before. A canine unit, as in scent dogs and their handlers. And thank God that they were on the case, because at 4:27 PM on May 16th, the dogs found something. It was a heavily wooded area, just off the cliff's edge.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  The dog was alerting to something that was far down below. It had clearly been thrown over the edge, and it was a trash bag. And inside of the bag was a body. Now, everyone knew that this had to be Riley, but they couldn't verify it at first, because the body was so decomposed that the face was completely unrecognizable.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  Still though, her mom Chantel recognized the clothes that were on this body, and she knew that it was Riley. Later, an autopsy also confirmed it. Which is just absolutely a nightmare. Can you imagine being her mother in those moments? Having to identify this decomposing body that's not even recognizable and you just know that it's your daughter's clothing and that it's her. It's just, it is so devastating to think about. And unfortunately, too much time had passed and the body was too decomposed for the coroner to determine a cause of death. They did think though, that this could not have been an accident. It was a homicide.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  And there were a few other details about the body that were just weird. First off, it looked almost as if someone else had dressed her. Her shorts and her underwear were pulled up insanely high, kind of like a toddler who pulls up their pants like way past their diaper, you know, like all the way up past their belly button, kind of like basically to their armpits. Now toddlers do it because they haven't quite worked out how clothes work, how high pants are supposed to be. But of course, as a 15-year-old girl, Riley knew how to dress herself. Then, there was also the fact that her underwear had been ripped. She also wasn't wearing a bra and she only had on one untied shoe. The other shoe was nowhere to be found.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  So again, it clearly looked like Riley didn't run away and just ended up in this state in some kind of freak accident. She had been murdered, arguably also dressed, postmortem maybe. And this news was just an absolute blow to her family. The day that her body was found, a huge candlelight vigil was held and so many people came out. Truly, it was an amazing gathering. Some people even found it within themselves to laugh and to talk about happy memories that they shared with Riley.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  I posted online a bit about how she thinks no one cares about her. So seeing all of this would probably just like make her feel so cared about her.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  She was amazing. She was like the light of every room she walked into.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  This is never a happy situation. You never want to hear about a missing person being found dead. But the one silver lining here was that Riley's body had a lot of clues. Clues that pointed very clearly at one suspect in particular. Now, there was something else at the scene where Riley's body was found that added to the bizarreness of this whole thing. There was this white chalky substance, something that almost looked like drywall mud. And it was all over her body in different places. And a test confirmed that it didn't just look like drywall mud. It actually was drywall mud. Stuff that you would use when you're building and finishing walls.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  There were also two screws found near Riley's body. But these screws, they were unique, to say the least. They weren't your average screw that your dad or your husband or your friend probably has a million of just lying around in his house right now. They were unique in the sense that they looked like they were contractor screws, which are a bit different than normal ones. They're more sturdy. They're built for, you know, hanging more than just a picture frame. And they were really only ever used at construction sites. And obviously, when you think of a construction site, in this case, you think of good old Andy, who we know worked on a construction site. The one that he left for about five hours around the time that Riley went missing.

• 35:52Speaker 01

  So investigators were thinking that her killer, maybe Andy at this point, might have thrown her into a truck to transport the body. And that the truck might have been dirty from hauling around other construction equipment. So Riley landed in the mess that was already there, and the drywall mud and other things just stuck and clung to her body. The problem with that theory was, though, that Andy didn't have a truck. It wasn't clear to the investigators how Andy could have been hauling all of this gear around, let alone how he would end up tossing Riley on top of it. But as it turns out, a neighbor had already given the investigators a key clue. This tip was actually something that detectives had learned very early on in the investigation.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  But it was only now that the police were realizing why it was significant. See, days earlier, a neighbor told detectives that on the day that Riley went missing, they noticed a green truck in the driveway of Chantel and Andy's house. The truck was parked as far back into the driveway as possible, almost like they didn't want to be seen, and the truck bed was facing the back of the house. But what's more interesting is that when the neighbor saw this truck, it was late enough in the day that Chantel should have been at work and she would have driven there. Her car wouldn't be home, and nobody else in the family had a car. Then, right after Riley's body was found, another woman called into the sheriff's office, and she told them that the day that Riley went missing, she had seen a green truck

• 37:20Speaker 01

  pulled over to the side of the road, right where Riley's body had been dumped. Unfortunately, the woman didn't get a good look at the driver. All she could tell was that it was a man. But the last tip about the green truck came from Andy himself during the interrogation, the one where he was caught in a whole lot of lies. During that interrogation, Andy had told the police that he had a friend who gave him rides to and from work every single day. It was a normal thing, not that notable. But, you want to guess what that friend drove? A green truck. So the police filed a search warrant to go look over at the friend's house and look at the green truck. And sure enough, it had traces of drywall mud all over the back, plus more of those

• 38:05Speaker 01

  very, very specific, particular screws. And when the police brought in those same canine dogs, the ones that helped find Riley's body, they immediately alerted to something in the trunk bed. Now, to me, that sounds like a pretty clear open and shut case. But just to make extra sure, the police pulled some surveillance footage from the different businesses and houses that were close to the construction site. And sure enough, they saw Andy. They saw Andy driving that specific green truck right to that construction site and back. But still, still, after all of that, they wanted more. So they called Andy in again and they kind of kicked it off by showing Andy all of the evidence that they had against him.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  And he immediately started making up some of the most random stories. He painted this whole picture about being so sick and needing drugs so badly that he had to borrow his friend's truck to go get them, you know, in the middle of the workday so that he could get his fix, all of these things. He then claimed that once he got the drugs, he saw a cop car parked nearby with its headlights on. According to Andy, that scared him enough that instead of going back to work and, you know, going about his day, he panicked and drove off. He also said, and this is so insane, I'm having a hard time getting it out. He said he did this to quote, "protect his family." I guess because he thought they couldn't handle the truth if he was arrested for using

• 39:33Speaker 01

  drugs, which, I mean, how selfless of him, it doesn't really make any sense, right? And the investigators knew that this was a complete load of crap. I mean, literally, all they had to do was check their records and see if any patrol cars had been parked in that particular place that day. Spoiler alert, there weren't. So it was such an easy lie to disprove. So Andy was finally charged with first degree murder, concealment of a body, and child abuse resulting in a child's death. Now, at the time of her death, Riley was a freshman in high school and was ready for four years of homecomings, proms, graduations. People knew her to be so positive and she was one of those people who always saw the silver lining.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Even with strangers, she had a way of just taking their troubles and turning them into this glass half-full kind of situation. And with the people who were close to her, like her friends, she was always reminding them that everything they wanted in life was possible and that they could do anything that they put their mind to. But I also don't want you thinking that that's all there was to Riley. She also loved cracking jokes and finding ways to get other people to smile. People would come to her whenever they were feeling down or upset because they knew that she could flip things around and lighten the mood. She also loved being the center of attention. Riley could be, you know, a little bit of a class clown, but she also did a lot of performing. She had a passion for singing and dancing and she would post videos on social media of herself doing both of those things.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Her hope was that one of those videos would take off and, you know, she'd go viral, make it big. So that was her life. That was her normal, cracking jokes, bringing all of this energy and excitement to everything she did. Every day was an adventure for her. Andy's trial didn't begin until September 27th, 2021, and that was the first time that a lot of the world got to hear any theories about what his motive was, why he did this, and how he did it. And the theory was that Andy was high that night. The prosecutor said that he kept going into Riley's room, pretending he just wanted her to come downstairs and watch TV, but going in there for one reason or another, and that this is when Riley began texting Hayden, telling him that Andy was in her room and that she was afraid.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  And they say, of course, he didn't really want her to come watch TV, not at all. The prosecution believed that at some point in the night, he tried assaulting her. And to keep her from yelling or waking up anyone else in the house, he grabbed a pillow and he held it over her face. He wasn't necessarily trying to smother her, but that's exactly what happened. And remember, the coroner hadn't been able to determine a cause of death, but there was a small blood stain with saliva on her pillow. So it did make sense that she might have choked to death with it over her mouth. Nobody was ever able to determine exactly when she died, but the police knew that her phone was shut off at 3:13 a.m.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  So the thought was that once Andy realized that Riley was dead, he stashed her body somewhere so her mom, Chantel, wouldn't find it. Then he went to work just long enough for everybody else to go about their morning routine and leave the house. And once he knew that his house would be empty, he borrowed his friend's green truck, drove back, and disposed of Riley's body. Now, there were a ton of witnesses who took the stand against Andy at the trial, one of them being Chantel. And even though a lot of her testimony covered things we already know, she was able to fill in the blanks about how Andy had been acting the day that Riley went missing. And in hindsight, I think it says a lot, but I wanna know what you guys think.

• 43:07Speaker 05

  I wanna focus May eighth.

• 43:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 05

  You get the phone call from the school.

• 43:12Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  Riley's not there. May eighth. Did, uh, what did you do on May eighth to try to find Riley?

• 43:20Speaker 06

  Oh, so after I spoke with law enforcement, we went and looked all around town. Um, we were calling her friends. We drove over to Great Cape because there was a little friend that she used to stay with there. So I went and checked her house. Um, we went and looked in a cave. That somebody said that she, that's where she was going. I don't know. We did, um, we called and we text and looked everywhere.

• 43:46Speaker 05

  All right. Did Andy McCauley come back from work?

• 43:49Speaker 06

  He did. He came back while I was talking to law enforcement when they first got there.

• 43:54Speaker 05

  Did you see him come back?

• 43:55Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  What do you recall about what happened when Andy came back?

• 43:58Speaker 06

  Um, he got out of the car and his face was like real big and his eyes were real big. And he just kinda like slow walked over to me and I said, started saying Riley's missing. I can't find her. She's not answering her phone. My texts aren't delivering. Uh, you know, I don't know where she is. And he was like, what? Let me go put my stuff down. And he runs inside. And then he comes back out and he jumps on a bicycle and, and says, I'm gonna go look for Riley. And he takes off.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Chantel said that when she came back home that night after searching for Riley, Andy was fake sleeping on the couch. She could tell because his eyes just didn't look like someone who was actually asleep. And you know how that looks? It's pretty easy to tell. They're kind of fluttering, they're moving a little bit. And it had made her wonder if he ever even went out looking for her. Maybe he just wanted to look like he was part of the search. She also knew that that night he was probably high and on something. So even though she was annoyed, she read the situation completely wrong. She thought that he was being flaky because he was on drugs, not because he was a murderer. So rather than fight with him about it, she just had decided to focus on the real issue, finding her daughter Riley. Later on, though, she did feel more suspicious.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  She was wondering if Andy had something to do with the disappearance, so she confronted him, and she recorded his response. Now, that response, that tape, was played in the trial.

• 45:21Speaker 07

  So what I'm saying is, is in that evening time, were you behaving bizarrely because you were in the need of something?

• 45:27Speaker 02

  I don't think so.

• 45:28Speaker 07

  Then why were you at three, four in the morning, trying to find heroin?

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Because I was, I was, well, I was asleep.

• 45:34Speaker 07

  You mean to tell me that?

• 45:35Speaker 02

  I was asleep, when I went to sleep, I couldn't, I wasn't asleep. But I was up and down because I was sick, you know how I get, like, sick.

• 45:43Speaker 07

  So you hadn't had anything, all day?

• 45:46Speaker 02

  That was a subtext.

• 45:48Speaker 07

  When?

• 45:52Speaker 02

  That morning.

• 45:53Speaker 07

  I shouldn't have been the one.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  My, I shouldn't have been your husband, like, I'm on the trial. And I, you know, I didn't, I don't do it, I don't experience, okay? I would never.

• 46:02Speaker 07

  I don't believe you would.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  Well, they, no.

• 46:04Speaker 07

  But I still, I have to, oh, I have to, I feel like I'm on trial. I have to answer every question for you, and I don't know the answers. I need this timeline. I need it because we're all trying to figure out the timeline. We're trying to figure it out. Because none of us firmly believe it's you, but until the police believe it's not you, they don't look anywhere. I have a whole list, everywhere, all these tips. I have a thousand text messages, Lance has a thousand text messages, she has a thousand text messages, of all these other things, and they won't look at them because they only think of you.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  I know, I'm watching them.

• 46:38Speaker 07

  I get that. I understand why they're looking at you. Your choices that night were.

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 07

  And if you had made better choices that night, and every night up to that, you would not even be in this position. So you are the person to blame for what's happening to you right now. I'm not saying anything that I'm asking you is rational, and I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. I am trying to make sense of what the is going on.

• 47:01Speaker 02

  I know, I know.

• 47:03Speaker 07

  And I can't make sense of it. I cannot figure out, have she left our house?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Didn't even go back. She also testified about the clothing on Riley's body and how it was all very odd, which of course backed up the detective's theories that Riley hadn't dressed herself.

• 47:27Speaker 05

  Do you remember the clothes that were found on Riley's body?

• 47:29Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 47:31Speaker 05

  This photograph right here, is that the same shirt that was on Riley's body?

• 47:36Speaker 06

  I, I, I believe so, yes.

• 47:38Speaker 07

  And Mr. James, for the record, that would be Exhibit 28.

• 47:40Speaker 05

  Exhibit, I believe so. Ms. O'Leary, would you confirm?

• 47:43Speaker 06

  Yes, this says 28 on the back.

• 47:45Speaker 05

  Okay. Do you remember the type of pants or shorts that were on Riley's body?

• 47:51Speaker 06

  Yes, they were shorts she would never have worn outside of our house.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  Have you ever seen her wear those shorts inside your house?

• 47:59Speaker 06

  No, they were Daisy Duke jean shorts and Riley barely ever wore jeans to begin with. Um, she was always in comfy clothes. She hated the way that jeans felt on her.

• 48:13Speaker 05

  And the shoes that Riley was wearing, do you remember where the shoes came from?

• 48:18Speaker 06

  Um, actually, I didn't recognize the shoes when they showed them to me. But I later found out my mom had bought those for her at the Goodwill.

• 48:27Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Andy's defense team tried saying that there was no solid evidence against him, that it was all circumstantial. They also argued that Andy had no motive, which is very debatable. I mean, I'd say if you're the sort of person who would harm a child in that way, it's not too hard to believe that you would murder them to keep them quiet, right? Now, while Riley lived full-time with her mom, Chantel, and Andy at the time of her death, she spent time with both of her parents, including her dad Lance Crossman. And at Andy's trial, Lance, her dad, said, quote, "She will forever be 15 years old to us. Counsel mentions 15 years. In 15 years, he will be eligible for parole. She only got 15 years. That's all she had."

• 49:11Speaker 08

  In the Circuit Court from Morgan County, West Virginia, the State of West Virginia versus Andrew J. McCauley Jr., case number 25F35. We, the members of the appellate jury, as to the issues, joined, find the defendant Andrew J. McCauley Jr. as follows. Count one, murder.

• 49:33Speaker 08

  Guilty of murder in the first degree. As to count two, death of a child by a custodian by child abuse, guilty. As to count three, concealment of a deceased human body, guilty. Signed today's date by the foreperson.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Right now, Andy is serving two life sentences. And while I'm glad there was justice for Riley and accountability, it still doesn't explain the why. And I don't know that we'll ever really know the why. I truly don't. I wonder if there was more to it, if he had been possibly creeping out Riley for a while, if this was very drug fueled, or if he was just a predator by nature. All I know is I'm glad he's locked away. I'm happy her family finally has answers and that they can have some sort of peace with this situation. I want to give a special thanks to Red Tree Stories for sharing their interrogation footage and helping us get this episode together. As a reminder, please take a quick minute to follow the podcast on whatever podcast app you're listening on.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  And if you are watching this on YouTube, please take a quick second and hit the subscribe button. Thank you for listening to today's episode and hearing Riley's story. And until the next case, stay safe. Bye.

• 50:47Vanessa Richardson?

  If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.