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- [00:02]
A
What they did to your family. You're lucky to make it out alive. Streaming on Peacock. These men are going to come after me. Taking them out. It's my only chance. Put a bullet in her head. From the co creator of Ozark. Looks like a family was running drugs. Execution style killing. It's rare for the Keys. Any leads on who they might have been running for? The cartel killed my family. I'm gonna kill them. All of them. MIA Streaming now only on Peacock.
- [00:33]
B
Please note, this podcast contains references to physical and sexual assault and graphic depictions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.
- [00:52]
A
That night, specifically, Aiden was very emotional. He was frustrated, and it was. It was time to go to bed. And we read our bedtime book and we had brushed our teeth and taken a bath and all that good stuff. And he's in his bed and he's just like, you know, I miss my mommy, Faith. And he just gets into this long tangent and he's crying and he's like, but which cloud is she above? Because I don't know which one. And he is just a stopping mess. He is such a smart boy. He's always been a very. A very intelligent boy. And he'll ask you questions that are you just. You thought a grown person asked you that question and how do you respond to it? Because you don't want to lie to him, but you also want to protect his innocence and still have some kind of beauty in this crazy thing we called life. It.
- [02:26]
B
Hey, Rosemary.
- [02:27]
C
Hey, Troy. I've been doing a little bit of digging and I found something that is kind of perplexing regarding the 911 call. The neighbor. His first two calls are clearly listed and they're there. However, it appears that there might be a call from another caller listed as just Bobby.
- [02:48]
B
It's a couple of days after my call with Amanda and Kaitlyn, and I've got Rosemary on the line. I'm staring at a file she's just sent me, dumbfounded. What she sent doesn't make any sense. Not because it isn't clear, but because until now, nobody seems to have known it existed. And if it's accurate, it changes everything. What I'm looking at is a 911 call report, sometimes just called a CAD file. At first glance, it seems like just a regular basic call from a guy called Bobby in quotation marks reporting that he's just driven past someone waving a flashlight, trying to flag cars down around the area where Faith's body was found. Like Bob, the guy that stopped to help and went to go and get smurf. For Ryan.
- [03:29]
C
No. This call comes in before the cowboy arrives to where ryan was. It's 100% not the cowboy that went to pick up Smurf.
- [03:44]
B
Rosemary tells me she's done some digging into the report, and she's found something astonishing.
- [03:49]
C
Its phone number appears to be a landline in Chickasaw, Oklahoma. Two hours away.
- [03:57]
B
Wait, wait, wait. Two hours away. And they're calling 911 to make a report about Faith's death?
- [04:03]
C
Yes. What I think is really interesting is the first two calls from the neighbor, those calls are like, automatically, like snapped into creating a log for the call. For example, on the neighbor's report, you know, when. When a call comes in, the data is there, the cell phone number is there, the name of the reporting person is actually there. Now, this other report has nothing like that, and it appears to be possibly manually created.
- [04:35]
B
She goes on to explain that based on the number attached to the report, when the call was initially made, it would have been directed to the Grady county dispatcher, not the Seminole county dispatcher. So Grady county would have had to transfer the call. Because the call was transferred through Grady county, none of the automated snap in data, other than the time the call came in would have actually pushed through. So the dispatchers would have had to manually enter the information into the record. And when Rosemary tells me about the timing of the call, I go from staggered to absolutely mind blown.
- [05:05]
C
Three calls hang. First one is 8:29 and 8:34, and then 8:37. And those, the back two that we initially thought was the first call from the neighbor are actually not the first call. I believe the first call is from Bobby. This narrows the timeline down by three minutes. So that's. It's a big deal.
- [05:29]
B
And if you look at it in conjunction with the neighbor's first call, his daughter heard the screaming, you know, Ryan screaming. And as soon as she heard that, he went to his front door, saw Ryan, you know, waving his flashlight around, and then he called 911. So there's an interesting kind of gap there. I think if you wait three minutes out, like you just time that it's a lot longer than it sounds. You know, if he's traveling at the speed limit, which I think is 65, if he's calling at 8:29, then, you know, he's driving past at 8:28. So you're kind of closing that gap a little bit. And there's a. There's a four minute gap then between his call and the neighbor's call. So what happened in that four Minutes.
- [06:15]
C
That's exactly right.
- [06:17]
B
We end the call and now I'm sitting in silence trying to make it make sense. We got this guy Bobby, who's clearly using a fake name that just happens to be the same name as the first guy who stops to render aid, calling from a landline 96 miles away at 8:29pm, a mile north of where Ryan found Faith's body. I just can't get my head around it. And I realise as I'm still trying to connect the dots that I'm failing not because of the complexity around it all, but because those dots don't even go together in the first place. After Faith died, her sister Caitlin and her husband Casey adopted her son Aiden. He was only three when she died, but he still has memories of her. And Caitlin tells me if there's anything positive to hold onto on the back of Faith's death so that her kids were just old enough to remember her, the idea that they'll be able to carry those memories with them for the rest of their lives is them a sort of comfort. I asked Caitlyn to tell me a little more about who Faith was.
- [07:14]
A
Faith. Faith was a very spunky and outgoing individual, very positive person. She was a girl's girl. She loved to do makeup and her hair. She loved boys and you know, magazines. She was infatuated with Justin Bieber when we were growing up. She was an all throughout girly girl. There were a total of four of us and we were all raised by our mother. I was the third in line, Faith was second in line and then our brothers held up the top of the chain and the bottom of the baby of the family. Faith and I were 360 days apart in age growing up we, we always shared a room together and I was the more clean and organized sister and she mess train, everything was just a mess. Clothes everywhere, makeup, hair products, you name it, shoes, clothes, it was everywhere. As kids we were, we were pretty close. We bickered like your, your typical siblings did, but we would find a way to get around it. And at the end of the night we were karaoke in our room and dancing and jumping off our nightstands to some Shania Twain and any kind of pop music that was trendy back then. We also played softball together. We played for nine years together, her and I on the same team. So that was a really good thing for us bonding wise. And funny enough, for about half of those years our mom was one of our coaches. So we had mom yelling at us, pushing us to do better. When she wasn't trying to jump over a fence at a referee because he called the wrong shot or she was definitely a ball mom. I remember one specific time Faith had pitched me a ball, and the girl at the plate, she hit the ball and she almost hits me in my head with the baseball bat. I don't know that that's happening. I didn't see that happen. I'm just looking up for a ball, a pop fly ball, and my mother is coming around that softball cage. She is coming at that referee. She is not having it. I don't know what happened after that, but I do remember her coming around those softball cages, coming out that referee to tell him about himself. That just says who she is. She is a protector of her children. That's what we do as parents. And even when it's some younger girl who doesn't realize where she's swinging that bat, she wasn't doing intentionally, but for the fact that it almost hit her baby child, it was a wrap. We got into our teenage years and still shared a room. I was the tomboy of girls and Faith was the girly of girls. So we clashed in that aspect. She was about boys. I was not so much about boys. I was just surviving and going to school and wanting to come home and sleep and just hang out, chill, watch some TV. Faith got pregnant at 17 and had her first child when she was 18. Beautiful little girl. I was over the moon. I was the nurturing sister for sure. I swooned over her daughter being born. Faith, even growing up, she was the center of attention. She. Everywhere she went, everybody just flocked to her. Her aura was where everybody wanted to be at. So Faith was just the life of the party. And I was more so not. I was standing the corner, watch everybody, see how everybody acted to see who. Who was my kind of person and what kind of group really wasn't my kind of person. Faith was just like, well, I'll be friends with all of you until one of you say something that I don't like, and then I'll just fight you and move around. We didn't hang out a whole lot in our group of friends because her group of friends happened to not be my group of friends. Faith had a lot of abandonment issues and acceptance issues due to the fact that our father wasn't in our lives. And unfortunately, she fell into the wrong kind of crowds. And to be accepted, she followed suit and she did what other people did because she wanted to be liked and loved for who she was and that she didn't see her self worth, like many of us had always seen her self worth being. So she started actively using drugs and she lost custody of her daughter. Once she lost custody of her daughter, she started seeking out treatment, wanting to get better, wanting to get sober. And she was having a hard time, but she was doing it. And then a couple years later, she had Aiden, her son. And that was her kind of like in her mind, kind of her restart like, this is. This is where I can't mess up. I gotta raise him and I gotta keep my stuff together because I'm seeing my daughter. I'm on my way to get her back. I've got this new little baby who depends on me. I couldn't see how you can make the choice of a drug over your children. But now that I am a little bit more seasoned and experienced with life, I know that it's not something that you can just make a choice to say, okay, I'm done, or I'm gonna do it. It's just a monkey on your back.
- [12:58]
B
I take a breath when Caitlin first mentions Faith's drug use. Not in judgment, but because I know how these things can sometimes play out. People with addiction issues, they're often looked upon unfavourably. And it can change the perspective of a person in some people's eyes. It's the sort of thing that can lead to a bias or dismissiveness in the way a case is handled. People sometimes take the view of, well, if she hadn't been there in the first place. It's prime victim blaming territory. There's no denying that addiction is part of Faith's story. It was a daily dance with the devil. And like so many who struggle, the devil often led. But she was fighting back. She'd moved into her own place, found steady work, and had gone through rehab. For the first time in a long time, she was getting back on her feet, focused on building something better for herself and her son. But the world around her hadn't changed. The people in her orbit were still caught in the same cycle. She was trying to escape. And she remained surrounded by the risks that came with it all.
- [13:53]
A
And when she had Aiden, the day that she had him in the hospital, my husband and myself went to the hospital, of course. And she looked at me and she said, if something were to happen to me, please promise me you'll always take care of my son. And I told her, well, of course, I. I promise that. And I didn't think, not much more of it. Just. That was kind of a crazy thing. To. To ask me. Because you're not going anywhere.
- [14:27]
D
We gather here tonight to bring women
- [14:29]
C
back to their rightful place.
- [14:32]
D
The Testaments, a new Hulu original series from the executive producers of the Handmaid's Tale.
- [14:37]
A
It's easier to accept a story than believe that the people around you are monsters.
- [14:41]
D
The battle isn't over.
- [14:42]
A
There comes a time when you have to take action, when you have to choose your own destiny. Never quite as it seems.
- [14:49]
D
Watch the new Hulu original series, the Testaments, streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
- [14:59]
B
If losing faith that night on Highway 56 wasn't painful enough already, Caitlin goes on to tell me that it wasn't the first time that she and Amanda had felt the gut dropping burn of loss and grief. Only nine months earlier, the ground had already dropped out from beneath them.
- [15:21]
A
Stephen, our older brother, he was 24 when he died. He kinda, he ruled the roost. He was just a goofy kind of guy, 6 foot 4, just lived his head in the clouds all the time. But he was a great brother, very too good really and truly to be on this earth. June 29th of 2020, we get a phone call that Stephen had died. I was off of work that day and I was just kind of running some errands. And funny enough, I was at the bank in a teller line and two aisles over from me, I see that there's a sheriff also in the teller line and he is, I would assume his, his wife works at the bank. They're having a conversation. They had just got done leaving a wreck on the highway with some fatalities in it. That, it was just, it was awful, it was sad and I was just like, man, that's, that's horrible. And I continued driving, went about my day, and not 10 minutes later do I get a phone call of this lady crying, saying that Steven had died. So I immediately hang up and I'm calling my mom, calling my mom, she's at work. So she's not answering the phone because she's actually in training at work. And finally she answers and I'm like, I need you to figure this out because this is what I'm being told. I don't know. You got to figure this out. And sure enough, about an hour, about 30 minutes later felt like forever. But really I was, I've just pulled into the pharmacy when I got that call and she was crying and she said that Steven had died in a car accident and he, he lost his life. His dog passed away and another lady had, had died in that fatality. Stephen and his girlfriend were traveling down Highway 102. It was a two lane highway. And he clipped the back end of this little SUV that was going the opposite direction. And Steven, when his vehicle went to the ditch, he had overcorrected, went down into the ditch, came back up, back onto the road. And then his car rolled a few times before landing on the head of the vehicle. And at that time, another lady who was traveling behind Steven smashed into Steven's side of the vehicle and killing him head on.
- [17:58]
B
Nine months and one day, that's all the time they got between losing Stephen and losing Faith. Nine months to grieve. Nine months to try to put the pieces back together. Nine months before another phone call, another highway, another devastating drive toward flashing lights that would shatter their existence. And this time it'd be Caitlin and Casey who made that drive.
- [18:20]
A
About nine months later, March 28th of 2021, my husband and I, we were avid fishers. We got up and we took our niece and our nephew. We were all going to go fishing. It was a Sunday, so we all, we loaded up, we went out fishing, fished all day. And that day specifically, Casey had caught the biggest bass of his entire lifetime. It was amazing. I was a good £9. He was just on top of the world with that fish. He happened to be on the phone with his mother at the time that he caught this nine and a half pound bass. And I'm on the other side of the pond and he's freaking out, yelling at me and he's telling his mom, he's got to go, he's got to go, he's gotta, he's gotta get two hands on this fishing reel. Catches this big old fish. We, we decided, we wrapped it up around 7 o', clock, 7:30 and catch, come back into town and we stopped and got our kiddo something to eat. And as I pull, as we pull back into the driveway, my phone rings. And it's my mother. And I don't answer it. I got my hands full, my hands are dirty. Just everything just reeks of fish and sweat and sun. And as soon as my phone stops ringing, Casey's phone starts ringing. And it's my mom. So just new, it's like that stomach drop, something's wrong. So Casey answers it on speakerphone and she says, casey, where's Caitlin at? And she's like, this lady just called me, told me that Faith is dead, that Faith is laying on the side of the road dead. And Casey, at that point, he gets out of the car I'm telling our kids, like, you know, let's, let's get out of the car. He goes into the house and I just kind of sit in our car by myself. I'm just trying to gather what she was saying at the time. Casey, Casey comes back out of the house and he's like, I know where it's at. And we just, we just haul tail. Casey had called the sheriff's office and got the location of any accidents in that area at that time. And they had given them an approximate location of where they were working at an accident scene right then. So we got there probably 9, 9 15, because it's a good 35, 40 minute trip for us. And I remember going down the highway and you can see all of these lights going on on emergency vehicles. And I see that there's, there's a line of cars at a stop. And Casey was driving, thankfully, and he put the car in park. And before he had it in park, I was out of that truck running up this, up this highway in the middle of nowhere. And I remember I was running until I got about 10ft to Faith's body on the ground before I just stopped. There was just no need to go any further. I'm not for sure why. If I could go back, I would have definitely done a few things differently. But I stopped and I see all these men standing around my sister's body. And there's a big light tripod looking deal above her. And one of those officers look up and they, they're, they see me and they start coming my way. And he's motioning me back behind another emergency vehicle. And I'm just telling him, I'm like, I need to know if that's Faith Ely. I need to know if that's my sister or not. I have to know. And he's like, well, this, this young lady, she doesn't have any identification. We're working on trying to get an identification on her. And he asked me, why am I there? And I said, there was this lady who called, called my mom who said that my sister had been hit by a car, she was dead. I said, I don't know who it is, but I just need to know, like, my brother just died nine months ago. I need to know if this is my sister or not. And he says, okay, well, do you have a photo of her? Do you, does she have any tattoos, markings, anything you can think of? And I'm like, well, she looks like me. She looks like me. I'm like, she has tattoos. She's got them on her, on her legs. She's got roses on her arm. And he's like, well, we believe that this is Faith. And he said, but we're working on that. I'll be right back. And so at that point, I just went. I just. I just collapsed in the middle of that highway. And I called my mom, and I'm calling my mom to tell her that it is her. I felt that it was her. I knew it. And poor Casey, he don't know what to do. He's crying and he's trying to console me. And I'm just. I'm not getting out of the middle of this highway for what seemed like forever. And then I hear this woman or somebody coming. So I look up and there's this lady. So I stand up and she comes rushing over to me, hugging me. She's like, I'm so sorry. I loved her so much. I hope that she didn't run in front of a vehicle. I loved her. And she's just rambling on and on, and I have no idea who this woman is. And she's like, if you need anything, just call me. And then she leaves. I don't know what she went to go do. And another officer comes up to me and he says, if you want, just go sit in your vehicle and then will send somebody down to you.
- [24:06]
B
Caitlin explains the woman who approached her that night was Ronica Ryan's mum. She was also the one who'd made the call earlier to Faith's mum, Amanda, to tell her that there'd been an accident and that Faith was found dead on the side of the highway.
- [24:18]
A
We started making our way back to the vehicle and two people had approached me and they say that they're with the DA's office. They're investigators of the DA's office and they're there that night kind of looking over everything. One of them gives me his phone number and says, you know, I'll be in contact with you. And another gentleman comes up. He's a. He's a lieutenant. And he says, my name is Lieutenant Dansby and I'm with ohp. I'm sorry to hear about your sister. We're investigating it, but at this time, I would advise you not to talk to the other party involved, as this whole. This. This ordeal is very hinky. So whatever you do, I would not talk to that party. And at the time, I'm not putting those two and two together, that connection, until we happen to see Veronica come to our vehicle once more. And she's she's still in the same kind of state. I'm so sorry. I loved her. She was like my daughter. I hope she didn't run in front of a vehicle earlier today. She was drunk and she was out on the highway. My husband was riding his mower. He saw her in the. In the middle of the highway, and he had said that she's going to get ran over by a car. And Ryan is so distraught, he's in the truck. And then that's kind of when it all started clicking of who she was with at the time. And then Casey and I stayed there on scene. I don't know what time it was that the medical examiner's office picked up my sister, but we stayed there until that medical examiner's fan had left the scene with my sister.
- [26:09]
E
If we could go back in time, and I said this to myself is like, if we'd have known the right question to ask on scene. Like, I think Caitlyn and I would have been like, hey, like, why, if she's hit by a car, why isn't her body spread out? Why. Why isn't it look more like an accident? Why aren't y' all talking to these people where she just left them? But then there lies the big questions. Like, those are police officers. These guys, that's their job. Why are they not thinking to pursue that avenue? There's no official evidence to show that there's a vehicle. There's no skid marks. There's no broken glass, there's no tail lights. There's no broken mirrors. And the lady even said. The Ronica lady even said, well, yeah, we had a scuffle back at the house. You know, I went back in to shower or something like that. I, you know, we wrestled around in the mud.
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B
In the mud.
- [26:57]
E
Like, why didn't the police go down there and at least look at the area to see if there was blood? And then they come up with this choppy video of this white truck with the trailer and time stamp. And like, come on.
- [27:21]
A
Aiden is eight now. He doesn't talk about her as much as what he did when he was 3 and 4 and 5. But he'll say, hey, over. It's usually over dinner. He's like, hey, will you tell me some more stories about Mommy Faith?
- [27:34]
C
Yeah.
- [27:35]
A
What was she like? What was her favorite ice cream? What was her favorite color? You know, and we just will get into big conversations about Faith when we were children and growing up together. And he just laughs and he's like, oh, we do have a Lot in common. We like the same ice cream and the same colors and the same kind of music. And there are. There are a few things that he will. That he will probably hold on forever when it comes to what he likes and she likes at the same time. They don't come with a handbook, especially with this type of situation when it comes to children. Up until recently, Aiden has known that there's more to why has passed and why she's in heaven. And throughout those years, we could only tell him, like, you'll know. We'll be able to tell you more when you get older and you understand. But Mama Faith was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Jesus had to come and take her home. He.
- [28:43]
E
He was like 4 years old. He's looking up in the sky, looking at the clouds.
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A
And we.
- [28:46]
E
We tell him that, you know, his mommy's up in the cloud, you know, and trying to give him a reason why she's up in that cloud or what kind of work she's doing. It's just tough. He just knows his mommy's gone and he wishes his mommy was back.
- [29:00]
B
I hang up the phone from Katelyn and Casey and just sit there for a minute, the weight of everything settling heavy on my shoulders. To lose two loved ones within the space of nine months is devastating. But to then wake up every day in this kind of holding pattern, asking questions without answers and never finding closure, it's hard to even comprehend. But before I can get too deep into contemplating it, something else in the back of my mind starts pushing its way to the surface. Something that doesn't quite add up. There are a lot of things in Faith's case that don't make sense. But this. This is different. This is something I hadn't fully seen in context until now. It's to do with the initial call to Amanda, the one where she was first told about what had happened to Faith. And all of a sudden, it's the only thing I can think about. I grab my phone and dial Katelyn's number again. So was it Ronica that called your mom?
- [29:59]
A
Yes.
- [30:00]
B
Okay. Do you know what time she called?
- [30:04]
A
I don't know. I believe we. So my. So my mom probably would. She's got the times we pulled up about 9. It was between 9 and 9:15.
- [30:15]
B
And it's a 40 minute. Yeah, because, you know, like the, the. The.
- [30:20]
A
Or shortly after 8:30.
- [30:22]
B
Was it like 8:32 or something? Right. It must have happened pretty quickly because if it took you guys 40 minutes to get there and you think you got there around 9, 9:15 then.
- [30:32]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:32]
B
What time did Veronica Veronica Mr.
- [30:34]
E
Cold probably got done fishing. You know, phone call between 8 and 8:30 maybe, something like that.
- [30:39]
A
Yeah, but the first because the first 911 calls at 8:32.
- [31:11]
B
Faith's case is still open and her killer or killers have not yet been brought to justice. If you know anything about Faith, her death, or those who may be responsible, we'd like to hear from you. Please visit EchoSpace Media Tips and either leave a voicemail or send us a message. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram. Unforcetrauma Podcast if you're enjoying this podcast, please consider our subscriber option on Apple Podcasts or patreon@patreon.com where you get access to early episode drops, ad free episodes and bonus content across all of the Echo Space shows. If you'd like to keep up to date with progress on Faith's case, please visit and follow the justice for Faith Ely Facebook page. You'll find a link to it in the episode. Notes Blunt Force Trauma is a production of Echo Space written and hosted by Troy Taylor. Executive producers are Troy Taylor, Mark Girouli and Fred Shirts. Our main theme song is Lose My Mind by Maya Davidoff and the show also contains audio content from Moby Gratis.
- [32:15]
D
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