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1:06

Darkcast network. Welcome

1:08

to the dark side of podcasting. 2022

1:16

was a rough year for Caden Black. The

1:18

popular high school athlete had moved from Pennsylvania

1:20

to Maryland with his mother, but

1:22

had recently moved back to his father's house in

1:24

Pennsylvania so that he could be closer to his

1:26

friends. The move, however, came

1:29

with its own set of challenges. Fights

1:31

at school led to him being expelled, and

1:33

a fight with his father led to an

1:35

arrest, a psychiatric hold, and needing

1:37

to find a new place to live. Thankfully,

1:41

the family of one of his childhood

1:43

friends, the Fausts, agreed to take him

1:45

in. The arrangements seemed to work out

1:47

for everyone, and the Faust family, especially

1:49

the father, Chris, helped Caden get back

1:51

on track. But then, in

1:54

December 2022, Caden mysteriously vanished. It

1:58

took several days for his parents to find out. out that

2:00

their son was missing and when they

2:02

did, there were questions surrounding when he

2:04

was released. In modern missing

2:06

persons cases, there are usually plenty of theories

2:08

to be found on social media and Caden's

2:11

case is certainly no exception. Did

2:13

the 19 year old leave on his own to

2:15

avoid his upcoming trial? Did he

2:17

harm himself? Did the

2:19

Faust family, who graciously took him in,

2:22

actually have something to do with his

2:24

disappearance? We'll be talking

2:26

about all of this and more as we dig into

2:28

the story of Caden Black. When

2:31

a person goes missing, there's a special kind of pain in

2:33

the not knowing. I want to tell you

2:35

the stories of those who never came home. Today

2:38

I want to tell you the story

2:40

of Caden Black. I'm Kona Gallagher.

2:42

And I'm Ethan Flick. And this

2:44

is And Then They Were Gone. And

2:54

that's it. Thanks for watching. See you

2:56

next time. Welcome

3:25

back, everyone. Welcome back. Thank

3:27

you for joining us once again. I'm Kona.

3:29

And I'm Ethan. And we're the husband

3:32

and wife team behind this podcast. Each

3:34

week I tell you the story of

3:36

an unsolved missing persons case. Ethan

3:38

does not know anything about the case going

3:40

into the episode and he's here to provide

3:43

his reactions and questions in real time, hopefully

3:45

asking some of the same ones you have

3:47

at home. Now

3:49

this week's case is a recent one, as

3:52

you probably gathered from the intro. Yes. And

3:55

it was actually suggested by a listener of

3:57

ours. Now as of this

3:59

recording, Caden has been missing for less than a

4:01

year and a half. This

4:04

case is also one with a lot of finger

4:06

pointing, which of course we'll be getting into. But

4:10

more importantly, while it's had a

4:12

fair amount of local coverage, Caden's

4:14

disappearance hasn't gotten a ton of

4:16

national attention. So I'm hoping

4:18

that this will help get his name out there a little bit

4:20

more. Before we

4:22

get started, though, we've had some fine folks

4:25

join us over on Patreon. So

4:27

I want to make sure I give them a shout out. Thank

4:30

you very much to Lelisi, Ashley

4:32

K, Megan F, Melissa L, Molly,

4:34

and Mayda S. That is a

4:36

lot of M names. Did

4:39

you join us? I just noticed that. Random

4:42

alliteration. Yeah, like thank you, all of

4:45

you. Yeah, thank you, everybody. As

4:47

a reminder, you can get access

4:49

to ad-free episodes by joining our

4:52

Patreon at any level or by

4:54

subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Now

4:56

with that business out of the way, let's

4:58

get right into the case of Caden Black.

5:01

Caden McAllister Black was born on December 10,

5:03

2003 in Pennsylvania to Kara Leatherwood and

5:08

Maurice Black. Karen and

5:10

Maurice had three boys together, Jordan, Caden,

5:12

and Carter. Karen and

5:14

Maurice divorced when Caden was around three

5:17

or four, and the boys primarily lived

5:19

with their mother. But

5:22

Maurice lived across town, so everybody

5:24

remained close. Caden has

5:26

been described by everyone who knew him

5:29

as someone who was completely incapable of

5:31

staying still. That

5:33

sounds familiar. He

5:36

mainly channeled this energy into sports and

5:38

grew up playing football. Caden

5:40

also ran track and enjoyed BMX

5:43

bike riding. He would

5:45

also go to the local park and play basketball

5:47

and eventually joined a boxing gym. Whoa.

5:51

Yeah. That's all over the place. Oh,

5:53

and he like would run a lot too. Like if he was

5:55

just bored, he'd go out for a run. He was like that

5:57

type of guy. It

6:00

is. It was a lot. So

6:02

basically if it involved physical activity, he

6:04

was in. Let me get that boy an Xbox.

6:08

Well, no, he did play video games too. Oh

6:10

my god. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little

6:12

bit later. But no, he did

6:14

that. Like he did it all. Though

6:16

sports came easy for Kata and not everything else

6:19

did. Throughout his life, he

6:21

struggled with what can broadly

6:23

be described as emotional dysregulation.

6:26

He was a sweet, kind kid who loved

6:28

to help people and would stand up to

6:30

bullies. But he also had

6:33

anger issues. Kaidan attended

6:35

Eastern York High School. And though he

6:37

was a star athlete and well-liked, he

6:39

also started getting into fights, which obviously

6:42

caused problems at school. Kaidan

6:44

was evaluated, it sounds like

6:46

a few times during his high school years,

6:49

if not earlier. And

6:51

he was diagnosed as being

6:53

on the autism spectrum and

6:55

as having ODD, or Oppositional

6:57

Defiance Disorder. It

6:59

was also said that he

7:01

had anxiety with OCD tendencies.

7:05

All right, that's also a lot. It

7:07

is. And again, I think this was

7:09

a couple of different diagnoses

7:12

at different times. So

7:15

do you think these are different diagnoses trying to get

7:17

to pinpoint the issues of the same problem? Yes,

7:20

I do. I do. And they were done... They

7:23

may not be concurrent. It

7:25

might be different opinions. Yeah,

7:27

like one man's opinion versus another. Yeah,

7:29

okay. So I do want

7:31

to talk about that because, you know,

7:33

a quick note about ODD. Yeah,

7:36

I wanted to ask about that. I don't know

7:38

anything. I mean, I can gather from

7:41

the name what it means, but... Yeah,

7:43

so it's very controversial and

7:45

in short a bullshit diagnosis.

7:49

Now, I've always believed that just based on, I

7:51

don't know, you know, different things that I've read

7:53

or, you know, whatever I've known about it. Of

7:56

course, I'm not an expert. So

7:58

I actually... I asked one,

8:00

I asked my own

8:02

therapist, like at the

8:04

end of my session, I said, hey, on an unrelated

8:07

note, what are your thoughts on

8:09

oppositional defiance disorder? And

8:12

she says she hates it, which, you know, again

8:14

was like my feeling, but I wanted to kind

8:16

of get a professional take on it. It

8:19

always struck me as a way

8:21

to attach a label to people,

8:23

mainly kids, while often ignoring underlying

8:26

issues. And she pretty

8:28

much said the same thing, but

8:30

then interestingly, which I never knew,

8:33

and again, I didn't tell her like what

8:35

this was about or why I was asking,

8:37

she said that it was disproportionately diagnosed with

8:40

teenage boys, especially teenage

8:42

boys of color, which

8:46

Caden is. So Caden's

8:48

father, Maurice, is black and his mother,

8:50

Kara, is white, so he's biracial. And

8:53

yeah, so teenage boys of color

8:55

receive this diagnosis more often than

8:58

other demographics. She says

9:00

that basically it's a way to attach

9:02

a label to a kid if you

9:05

need one for like an IEP in

9:07

school or something like that, but it

9:09

really ignores a lot of underlying issues,

9:11

which often do include anxiety and depression.

9:15

That's interesting because when I was working in

9:17

social services, we would see a lot

9:19

of, basically the same thing

9:21

with ADHD, with

9:24

young kids of color, where

9:27

it was basically the

9:29

same thing, like they would say the kid has

9:31

ADHD and

9:34

just completely ignore why they

9:36

were acting out. And

9:38

then they just put them on Ritalin and... Call

9:41

it a day. Yeah, basically, and like didn't

9:43

wanna treat any of the other issues that

9:45

they had. Yeah, exactly, so

9:47

that's the thing. And I mean, even a

9:50

name, like oppositional defiance disorder, I

9:52

mean, that is just really a

9:54

fancy way of saying this is

9:56

a bad kid. Yeah, right,

9:58

or... somebody that I

10:01

don't even say like acts out against

10:04

authority, right? Could just

10:06

be a kid that questions

10:09

authority. Yeah. Like any

10:11

teenager does. Right.

10:13

So again, you know, we could get into

10:15

a whole rabbit hole about this, but you

10:18

know, I did want to

10:20

bring it up because I think that

10:22

Caden's mental health struggles,

10:25

which were certainly real,

10:28

like the way they were handled by various

10:30

people at various points in his life potentially

10:33

did play a

10:35

part in his eventual

10:37

disappearance. Now with any of

10:40

these diagnoses, was he ever given any

10:42

type of medication? From

10:44

what I understand, he

10:47

was kind of on and off

10:49

different medications. Now when he

10:51

was living in Maryland with his mother,

10:53

he was going to therapy once a

10:55

week. But once he moved

10:58

back to Pennsylvania, he had

11:00

stopped therapy. Gotcha. So

11:03

yeah, so around this time, like I believe it

11:05

was around, you know, his sophomore year of high

11:07

school, his mother Kara got

11:09

a new job and moved to Hampstead,

11:12

Maryland. Now where they lived in Pennsylvania

11:14

was already pretty close to the Maryland

11:16

border. So this move only took them

11:18

about an hour away. And

11:20

you said they lived in York? Yeah,

11:22

York County. Gotcha. Kara thought

11:24

that the move and switching schools would give

11:27

Caden a fresh start and a better chance

11:29

at a successful high school career. And it

11:32

seems like it did. So she said at

11:34

one point that he did go to a

11:37

school there that had specialized

11:39

programs that really helped him. And he

11:41

excelled, like he was getting A's and

11:43

B's. He got really close to the

11:45

principal, who she said was this amazing

11:48

man. But the school didn't have a

11:50

sports program. And that

11:53

was Caden's true passion.

11:56

So he didn't want to go there. So

11:58

he ended up going to... a

12:00

different school nearby in Maryland

12:02

and it did not go well. So

12:05

this school was in Westminster, Maryland and he

12:08

did not make it through the school year

12:10

before he told his mother that he wanted

12:12

to move back to Pennsylvania. He

12:14

missed his friends at Eastern and basically just

12:17

wasn't feeling Maryland. Like he didn't like his

12:19

new school. He, you know, they originally I

12:21

think lived out on a farm somewhere, although

12:23

she moved to kind of the main drag,

12:26

but like he just, it wasn't a thing,

12:28

you know, he just wanted to go back

12:30

to where he grew up. It

12:33

should also be noted though that

12:35

your county is pretty rural in

12:37

Pennsylvania, so. Oh, for sure.

12:40

And it's important to bring that

12:42

up because I mentioned that cadence

12:44

biracial and your county in addition

12:47

to being extremely rural is extremely

12:49

white. Yeah, don't

12:52

say. The population is

12:54

about 2% black people. Well,

12:57

I mean, you know, York, Pennsylvania has

12:59

a song entitled Shit Town

13:02

named after it. I knew you were gonna

13:04

find it. I had to. And it came to bring up

13:06

live. I had to, come on. So

13:09

Cara didn't want him to move back because again,

13:11

he was her son. She didn't want

13:14

him to move out in general. And

13:16

you know, she didn't want him to move to

13:18

Pennsylvania. She didn't think he was going to make

13:20

things better. Like she

13:22

was generally against it, but his

13:24

father who still lived back there

13:26

was on board. And

13:28

at that point, Caden. For the same

13:31

reasons, like I'm sure he wanted his son with him. Exactly.

13:34

And Caden was almost 18 at this point. So

13:37

it's up to him. Yeah, I mean, you know,

13:39

not like technically could be like, well technically

13:41

you're 17, but I mean, he was almost 18. So

13:44

they decided to just go for it. So

13:48

Caden moved back to Pennsylvania to his

13:50

father's house and reenrolled in Eastern. But

13:53

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13:55

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15:40

Keaton quickly began having problems in school

15:42

and started getting into fights again. According

15:44

to his father, he was standing up to bullies

15:46

and that's why he was getting to fights. And

15:49

while that may be true, he did

15:52

end up getting expelled. After

15:55

being forced to leave Eastern, Keaton was

15:57

enrolled in Paradise School in Abbotstown. alternative

16:00

school that was a solid 40 minutes

16:02

away from Reitzville. Jesus, I

16:04

mean how how did he get there?

16:06

Did they provide transportation? Oh they did

16:08

and we are going to get way into

16:10

the transportation. Oh okay.

16:13

Yeah it's a big deal. Now

16:15

according to their website,

16:17

quote, Paradise School provides

16:19

intensive individualized academic and

16:21

social emotional support for

16:23

students experiencing significant social,

16:26

emotional, and or behavioral

16:28

difficulties, end quote. Sounds

16:30

like a youth prison camp.

16:32

Yeah I'm not a big fan of

16:34

alternative high schools in general and

16:37

I definitely have further opinions based on the

16:39

rest of the methods listed on their website

16:42

but that's really beside the

16:44

point. Okay. The

16:46

point of this is that on April 4th

16:50

2022, Caden who was 18 at this time was

16:53

riding on the school van. Now I saw it

16:55

referred to as a van. Other times it's referred

16:57

to as a bus but other, regardless, it's

16:59

the transportation that the school provided to get

17:02

him there. Caden

17:04

was assigned a seat on the back of

17:06

the bus apparently due to past bad behavior.

17:08

Now this already

17:10

doesn't make sense to me because

17:12

generally in a bus or classroom

17:14

the kid who acts up is

17:16

moved closer to the authority figure

17:18

not further away. I guess

17:21

maybe it depends on who the

17:23

bad behavior was directed towards. Maybe.

17:26

Maybe the bus driver didn't want to deal with him.

17:28

Yeah well probably based

17:30

on what happens next. In

17:33

either case according to a criminal

17:35

complaint this was a mandate

17:37

from the school because the

17:40

school is ultimately who makes

17:42

the decisions and rules

17:44

on the bus not actually the bus driver.

17:47

So in this day that we're talking about April 4th

17:49

Caden decided to move up to another

17:52

seat which was a

17:54

rule violation. Now before I

17:56

get into what happened next, Cara

17:58

has posted about this incident. a

18:01

few times on the Find Kaden Black

18:03

Facebook page. In one of

18:05

these posts, she refers to the Pennsylvania

18:07

Bus Driver's Manual. So of course, I

18:10

needed to go look that up to put all

18:12

of this into context. And

18:14

that's why I could

18:16

not stop writing this. Once

18:19

Kaden moved up to a different seat, the

18:21

bus driver pulled the bus over and told

18:23

Kaden he was tired of his insolence. Okay.

18:28

And now this is mostly

18:30

in line with the policy manual, which

18:33

states that a bus driver should quote,

18:35

drive out of traffic to a safe

18:38

location, stop and secure the

18:40

bus. This may be in a

18:42

parking lot or a driveway, end quote. Does

18:45

it specifically say to use the word insolence in

18:47

there or? It doesn't. That's why I said it's

18:49

mostly in line, you know, like this bus driver

18:51

just have a thesaurus. Yeah, I think

18:53

that's kind of a great. I don't

18:55

know. But in general context. Yeah. The

18:58

manual says that this is

19:00

what you should do in the event

19:02

of a serious discipline problem

19:05

such as a fight. To

19:08

pull the bus over. Correct. Okay.

19:11

So not this moving him moving

19:13

seats is not or should

19:15

not be considered a serious.

19:17

Right. If that's all it is.

19:20

Right. Yeah. But okay, you

19:22

know, again, I feel like

19:24

it's kind of a gray area, right? Because

19:26

one person serious is another person's minor. Right.

19:28

Who knows what's been leading up to this.

19:31

Now, the driver is then supposed

19:33

to get up, face the students

19:35

in quote, address the offenders in

19:37

a courteous manner, but in a

19:39

firm voice, end quote. I'm tired

19:42

of your insulin. Yes. But it says

19:44

like, specifically, you're not supposed to raise

19:46

your voice. You're not supposed to humiliate

19:48

anyone. You're not, you know,

19:50

like, it gives them a lot of

19:52

specifics on like how to handle disciplinary

19:54

situations on the bus. It really goes

19:57

into a lot of depth. They're

19:59

supposed to relay what the acceptable

20:01

behavior is and then give the

20:04

consequences if this behavior is not

20:06

followed. The manual

20:08

specifically says, quote, before you specify

20:10

related consequences, be sure they are

20:12

supported by existing policy and a

20:14

school principal, you are willing

20:16

to follow through and they

20:19

are within your power to

20:21

initiate. Now, they

20:24

are within your power to initiate is

20:27

in all caps, in bold

20:30

and underlined in this manual.

20:33

I'm not even sure what that

20:35

means. Well, let me tell you what it doesn't mean,

20:38

what this bus driver did. He

20:41

pulled over on the side of Route

20:43

30. Okay. So

20:45

not in a driveway or a

20:48

parking lot and told Kayden to get off

20:50

the bus. Okay.

20:53

Because he moved seats. Mm hmm. And

20:55

he was tired of his influence. Okay.

20:59

So not a serious offense or

21:02

rule violation. No, it

21:04

was a rule violation. No, no, no, but not

21:06

a serious one. Yeah, it wasn't a fight.

21:08

Like at that point nothing was violent, nothing was

21:10

crazy. He wasn't like throwing things or you know,

21:12

whatever. And he pulls off on

21:14

the side of a highway. I'm

21:17

relatively familiar with Route 30, not necessarily

21:20

in that area, but it runs all

21:22

through Pennsylvania. It does, yeah.

21:24

So it at times fluctuates between

21:26

a two to four

21:29

lane highway. Right. And

21:31

I don't know exactly where he pulled over. Sure. Because

21:34

again, it was a 40 minute drive. So you know. Right.

21:37

But either way, Route

21:39

30, the entire stretch is pretty

21:41

busy. It's usually dotted

21:44

with towns. Yeah. It fluctuates

21:46

from you know, 55 to 35 or

21:48

25 depending on where you're at. But

21:54

it's a pretty well traveled road. Right.

21:57

So not good. No. He

22:00

should be starting off. Yeah, and then he says get off the

22:02

bus? Yeah, get off the bus. Like where?

22:04

Yeah, and what's he gonna do? Like we don't know how

22:07

far away he is from his house. No,

22:09

exactly. Or the school or whatever. Like

22:12

you can't just tell a kid to get off the bus in the middle

22:14

of nowhere. Yeah, and it literally says that in the manual.

22:17

Like what you're supposed to

22:19

do is if you're close

22:21

enough to the school, you go back to

22:23

the school or go to the school, right?

22:25

And then let them handle it. Or

22:27

if you're not, you stop the bus and

22:30

then you radio somebody to come, right? That

22:32

makes sense. Yeah, so that's what you're supposed to do. Like telling

22:35

a kid to get off the bus is never what

22:37

you're supposed to be doing. So I'm

22:40

processing that because I do think that

22:42

context is important. I

22:45

don't think it necessarily excuses

22:48

what happens next. Again, this is according

22:50

to the criminal complaint. So

22:52

according to this, Kayden took off his

22:54

shirt, confronted the driver and

22:57

slammed the bus door shut. He

23:00

then threw a clipboard and papers out of the van.

23:02

So like, I guess, I don't know how you slam

23:05

it. Shouldn't then throw stuff out. But in

23:07

any case, the bus driver

23:09

told police that Kayden quote, became

23:11

aggressive, grabbing him by the throat

23:13

with his left hand and striking

23:15

them in the face with his

23:17

right, end quote, which

23:20

is very bad. Yes. Like

23:23

what the bus driver did

23:25

was absolutely wrong, but not

23:28

how you react. But

23:31

at the same time, I'm sure

23:33

that that didn't go from, I'm

23:35

tired of your insolence, get off the

23:37

bus to then

23:39

Kayden doing that. But

23:42

according to the criminal complaint, that's exactly

23:44

what happened. So just out of nowhere, He-

23:48

Like you can't talk to me and then

23:50

attack them basically. Then the

23:52

driver, according to him, grabbed a handful

23:54

of Kayden's hair, basically while he's being

23:56

like choked and punched, right? Grabbed

23:59

a handful of Kayden's hair, hair to which Caden

24:01

responded, quote, let go of my hair or

24:03

I'll kill you, end quote. Well,

24:06

whatever heat of the moment. Yeah.

24:09

Now, again, I am not excusing

24:11

any violence that Caden may have

24:14

initiated. Like bus drivers should not

24:16

be subjected to violence from the

24:18

students they're driving. However,

24:21

the bus driver was not

24:23

only out of policy, he

24:25

reacted completely inappropriately as someone

24:27

who works with kids who

24:30

literally go to a school

24:32

because they have emotional and

24:34

behavioral problems. And

24:36

that's, again, just if you take the criminal

24:38

complaint at face value. Like so

24:40

if you just believe that this is exactly what

24:42

happened and the order in which it happened. Which

24:46

I don't. Right. That

24:48

there were definitely more words exchanged than that.

24:50

Right. I would believe that too.

24:52

According to Kara, the bus had

24:55

surveillance video, which a lot of

24:57

school transportation does. And

24:59

she said that she and Caden's

25:02

attorney viewed this video and

25:04

it showed that Caden actually acted in

25:06

self defense. Now, I haven't seen the

25:08

video so I can't say what really

25:11

happened on that bus. Whether

25:13

he did actually act in self

25:15

defense or it happened more like

25:18

the bus driver said. Regardless,

25:20

it was a bad situation in which

25:24

both of them potentially were

25:26

in the wrong to a degree

25:29

but one was a high school

25:31

student and one was

25:33

an adult who was hired to

25:36

drive around students with emotional

25:39

and behavioral issues. So,

25:42

anyway, I know that we went off on kind

25:45

of like a tangent about this whole thing and

25:48

really kind of got into the details and I

25:50

really did read a lot of that manual. But

25:54

I really think that it's important and I

25:56

think that it's important because Caden has

25:59

been portrayed. a certain way in

26:01

a lot of the things that you read about this case. And

26:05

this incident was

26:08

a major event

26:11

for him in 2022. And

26:15

it's very possible that

26:17

in one way or another,

26:19

this also played a part

26:22

in his disappearance. So I think

26:24

it's really important to talk about it a lot and

26:26

really give as much context to it as possible. I

26:29

mentioned a criminal complaint. Police

26:31

were called, I mean, as you would imagine.

26:34

I mean, they definitely should have been, regardless

26:36

of who's in the right or wrong. And

26:40

Caden was arrested. Now he

26:42

was hit with a ton of

26:44

charges, including two felony

26:46

charges of aggravated assault.

26:49

He was also charged

26:51

with strangulation, simple assault,

26:53

reckless endangerment, and

26:56

disorderly conduct, which are all

26:58

misdemeanors. He was

27:00

also charged with harassment subject

27:02

to other physical contact, which

27:05

I believe it was an S. So you said that was

27:07

like a summary judgment? Summary. Summary

27:10

offense. That would be

27:12

my guess. I mean, every jurisdiction is

27:15

going to register those differently. But

27:17

if it's listed as F for felony,

27:19

M for misdemeanor, I would assume an

27:21

S would be a summary offense. Okay.

27:24

So it's listed as an S and

27:27

then also terroristic threats. Which

27:30

terroristic threats was above choking?

27:32

Is that what I

27:34

remember? No, I think that was also

27:36

a misdemeanor. Well, yes,

27:38

but choking was a summary offense. No, no,

27:41

no. Choking was a misdemeanor. The

27:43

summary offense was harassment. But

27:46

yeah, the strangulation was a misdemeanor, which

27:48

I find wild. Yeah. But

27:52

no, the only two felonies were the aggravated

27:54

assault. Now in York

27:56

County, and I had to

27:58

look this up because I read it

28:00

and I was like, this doesn't sound right, but people

28:03

who are incarcerated awaiting trial are not

28:05

sent to a local jail. Instead,

28:08

they are sent to York County Prison.

28:11

Interesting. Yes. And

28:13

according to their website, they hold

28:15

people who are awaiting trial or

28:17

have been convicted and are serving

28:19

sentences up to five years. So

28:23

I mean if they're serving sentences over five

28:25

years, I don't know if they go to

28:27

a state prison or how that works. Yeah.

28:31

Pennsylvania, anything over five years

28:34

is a state sentence. But yeah, so he

28:36

did not just go to like the county

28:38

jail or, you know, anything like that. Like

28:40

he went to straight up adult

28:42

prison. Hmm. Caden's

28:45

bail was set on April 13th, 2022. And

28:49

according to court documents was posted on April

28:51

17th. So it

28:53

seems as though he spent about four days

28:55

in prison while his family engaged a bail

28:57

bondsman in order to get him out. After

29:00

he was released on bail, Caden returned to

29:02

live at his father's house. But things continue

29:04

to be rocky in the young man's life.

29:07

A few months later, Caden and his father

29:09

go into a state. According

29:12

to Maurice, the two had already been

29:14

bumping heads prior to the school bus

29:16

incident. But on

29:18

this particular day, Maurice says that Caden

29:20

was, quote, setting pictures of himself on

29:23

fire and he was just

29:25

angry in general. He was just off. He

29:27

wasn't his normal self that day. End quote.

29:31

Setting pictures of himself on fire.

29:33

Yeah. Interesting. Right. But

29:35

that's what I'm saying. Like this

29:37

kid wasn't just, you

29:39

know, like, oh, I don't like people telling

29:41

me what to do. Like he clearly had

29:43

a lot of underlying things going on.

29:45

Yeah, for sure. Maurice

29:48

didn't give specifics on the altercation between him

29:50

and his son, but said that what happened

29:52

that day was mostly on him. Meaning

29:54

Maurice. But this fight

29:57

was bad enough that someone, I believe

29:59

it was. Maurice's fiancé called

30:01

the police. According to

30:03

an article that was published in the York

30:05

Daily Record that was then republished in the

30:07

Evening Sun, which is where I'm pulling this

30:09

from, Caden told police that

30:11

he didn't want to live. Kara,

30:14

however, disputes this account, saying that

30:16

it was actually Maurice's fiancé who

30:18

told police that she was afraid

30:20

that Caden would hurt himself. Regardless

30:23

of who made this statement, the effect was

30:25

that instead of being taken to jail, Caden

30:28

was taken to York Hospital and

30:30

put under an involuntary hold under

30:33

Section 302 of Pennsylvania's Mental

30:35

Health Procedures Act. A

30:39

lot of states have this act. It's called Different Things

30:41

in Different States. California is a 5150, but yes. DC,

30:43

it's 313. Yeah. So a lot of states have

30:45

this thing

30:48

where if you're determined to be a

30:50

threat to yourself or others, you can

30:52

be placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold,

30:54

usually lasting about 72 hours.

30:56

That's pretty standard. Maurice

30:59

later said that he did this so his son could

31:02

get the mental health he believed he needed, saying, quote,

31:04

I didn't want to see him go to jail. I

31:06

wanted him to get help for his anger issues. As

31:09

long as he got help, I would drop the charges.

31:11

I just wanted him to get

31:13

help. That was the only way he could

31:15

get help, end quote. I

31:17

mean, he didn't want to look into getting Caden

31:20

a therapist. I mean, honestly, that's kind

31:22

of my thought on it too. Like,

31:24

I feel like involving the police, especially

31:26

with somebody who's already facing

31:28

major charges. It's probably not the

31:31

best idea. No. If you're thinking, oh,

31:33

I don't want him to actually go to jail, like, not

31:36

the move. I mean, yeah, you don't

31:38

want him to go to jail to involve the cops. Yeah. But

31:41

it also makes me wonder too, if, you

31:43

know, care is correct. And it was his

31:45

fiancee who said that Caden

31:47

wanted to hurt himself if they

31:50

said that specifically because they knew

31:52

it would trigger a hold instead

31:54

of taking him to jail. Yeah,

31:57

I'm sure. Yeah. Interesting.

32:00

So then it really goes to like what

32:02

Caden's mental state actually was. Because

32:05

you know, Morrie says I wanted him to get help for

32:07

his anger issues, not I wanted him to get help because

32:09

I was afraid for his life. Right. Yeah,

32:12

because I was afraid he was suicidal. Right. So

32:15

I find that interesting. And it's probably something we should store

32:18

in the back of our heads. This

32:21

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Colombo Law. Now

33:52

we've had a lot of new listeners lately. So

33:54

before we get into Chris and the rest of the

33:56

Faust family, I would like to remind everyone listening that

33:58

I am not a journalist. This

34:00

is an opinion-based podcast and I

34:02

make no claims of being unbiased.

34:05

With that said, I do try to be as fair as possible.

34:08

I don't believe in being the devil's advocate because the

34:10

devil doesn't need an advocate, but I do like to

34:13

try to look at all sides of an issue. But

34:16

between the article that I was talking

34:18

about before and Facebook

34:20

posts that Chris himself has made,

34:22

I have a lot of conflicting

34:25

feelings about this family. The

34:27

Fowl's family. Yeah. And

34:30

this could be partly because of

34:32

the writer of that article, but

34:34

in it, the Fowls come off

34:36

as the white saviors who came

34:38

in and saved this poor troubled

34:40

black teenager. This

34:43

impression has caused a lot of pain for

34:45

Caden's family, who said that Caden comes from

34:47

a loving, stable family to whom he was

34:49

very close. Like, yes, his parents were

34:51

divorced. I mean, that doesn't

34:54

really mean much. It doesn't automatically

34:56

mean you come from like a bad family

34:58

or you know, you don't have support or

35:00

anything like that. So

35:02

let's get into what Chris said happened after

35:04

Caden was hospitalized. Now

35:07

this is not a quote from Chris

35:09

himself, but is directly from the article.

35:12

Quote. Chris Faust was at

35:14

the dentist when he got a call informing him

35:17

that Caden was in the hospital. He

35:19

bolted out of his appointment and went to see him. When

35:22

he saw Caden, they hugged. Chris spent

35:24

four or five hours with Caden that day

35:26

just talking. End quote. Wait

35:29

a minute. Wait a minute. So apparently

35:31

Chris already knew Caden? Yes.

35:35

How? Well, good

35:37

question. Ethan

35:39

Faust, Chris's son, had been one of

35:41

Caden's best friends since middle school. Caden

35:44

had spent a good deal of time over at

35:46

the Faust's home playing video games with Ethan and

35:48

swimming in their backyard pool during the summers. They

35:51

had the above ground backyard pool, which

35:54

everybody in Pennsylvania loves. And

35:56

it's so cute because I looked at the house on

35:58

Google Earth and like every. everybody has an

36:00

above ground pool at the neighborhood. We're

36:03

in Northern Virginia and that's not really a

36:05

thing here so much. So I really do

36:07

enjoy that about Pennsylvania. About

36:09

the above ground versus in ground pools? Yeah, I just

36:12

like love how it's like a cultural thing that

36:14

everybody has an above ground pool there. Well,

36:16

the ground stays frozen a lot longer up there.

36:18

So it's kind of pointless to have an in

36:21

ground pool. Yeah. But

36:23

I like it. Well, according to

36:25

Chris, when he went to

36:28

the hospital, so basically what

36:30

happened is when the police

36:32

came, they took him to the ER. He

36:35

then went through an intake process and

36:37

was placed into the hospital's mental health

36:40

facility. So Chris ended up

36:42

going to see him there and so that

36:44

Keaton was acting out at first and had

36:46

trashed his room. Once

36:48

Keaton was medicated, however, he began to calm

36:50

down. Now what the medication

36:53

was for, however, is unknown. It

36:55

was likely just a generic mood stabilizer

36:57

like an Ativan, like just something along

36:59

those lines that they would kind of

37:01

give to anybody because

37:03

they didn't have the time at

37:05

that moment to do a full

37:08

workup and diagnosis. But

37:10

as far as anyone knows, Keaton

37:12

actually didn't receive an official diagnosis

37:14

the entire time he was in

37:17

the hospital. Now

37:19

he would have, but he

37:21

unfortunately contracted COVID, which delayed

37:23

that process. And he was there. We

37:26

talked about how these holds are often for 72 hours. I

37:28

think he was there for about a month, if I'm not

37:30

mistaken. Because of the COVID? Yeah,

37:32

I don't know. I think that was a factor. I don't

37:34

know if that was the entire reason, but he was there

37:36

for quite a while. Now Chris

37:38

continued to visit Keaton every day,

37:41

bringing him magazines to entertain himself.

37:43

I mean, I'm guessing this was prior to the

37:45

COVID diagnosis, but I don't know. Chris

37:48

is an air traffic controller by

37:51

trade, but he also took a

37:53

theology course through Liberty University. So

37:56

he also gave Keaton spiritual guidance.

38:00

On one of his visits, he gave him

38:02

a Bible, and the two often talked about

38:04

the healing powers of faith. Liberty

38:06

University in general, again, as somebody who's

38:08

lived in Virginia my entire life for

38:11

the most part, is a huge red

38:13

flag for me. But so

38:15

is this next quote from Chris. Quote,

38:18

he just wanted to be loved,

38:20

end quote. Which, don't

38:22

we all? But also,

38:25

Caden was and is extremely

38:27

loved. He has

38:29

an entire family who dearly

38:32

loves him. That's not

38:34

to say that anyone couldn't use more people

38:36

in their lives to love them. But

38:40

he did have people. So I'm

38:42

curious, other than Caden and

38:44

Ethan being best friends, what

38:47

was Chris's angle here? I

38:49

don't know. That was it. That's

38:51

how he knew Caden. I don't know how he

38:53

actually found out about Caden being in the hospital.

38:56

Like who was the one who called him. Yeah,

38:59

I have no idea. Because

39:01

they're not going to let you take your cell phone

39:03

into the psych wing. Right, exactly.

39:05

So somebody, yes, I don't know, somebody

39:07

must have contacted somebody who then contacted

39:10

him. I didn't

39:12

get the impression that Caden's parents knew Chris

39:14

all that well before all

39:16

this happened. I mean, they

39:18

might have, but I didn't get the impression that

39:20

they were friends. I

39:23

mean, one of them

39:25

called Chris, but I don't

39:28

know. I just

39:30

didn't get that impression. But I don't know how

39:32

he actually found out. After

39:34

Caden recovered from COVID and he was allowed

39:37

to leave the hospital, he was not allowed

39:39

to return home. Unfortunately, because

39:41

he was out on bail at the time of this

39:43

fight with his father, Caden had

39:45

to return to York Prison to await

39:48

another bail hearing. Yep.

39:51

Then Chris tried to bail Caden out

39:53

immediately, but there were delays. Caden

39:55

ended up staying in prison for several weeks

39:58

and Chris recalls seeing him with cuts bruises

40:00

from fights with other inmates. Why

40:03

was he in for several weeks? Like

40:06

I said it was just delays like

40:08

apparently there were staffing problems there you

40:10

know just like normal bureaucratic like nonsense

40:12

that delayed him getting his new

40:15

bail hearing. His original

40:17

bail was eventually reinstated and

40:19

was posted on August

40:22

9th. Now after the altercation

40:24

with his father which kind of caused this

40:27

whole thing, Caden didn't want to return

40:29

to his home. He also wasn't going

40:32

to return to Paradise School because of

40:34

the bus incident but

40:36

he didn't want to move back to Maryland

40:38

either. He was kind of adrift

40:40

at this point and

40:43

that was the Faust. They

40:45

agreed to take him in and Caden

40:47

was released into Chris's custody. In

40:50

the article it says that the Fausts painted a room

40:52

for Caden and bought him a new bed because they

40:54

wanted him to feel as though he's part of the

40:57

family and you know that's

40:59

lovely. But what's less lovely

41:01

is that the Fausts seemingly

41:03

added another dig at Caden's

41:05

family right after saying

41:07

that when Caden arrived he wanted to go for

41:09

a walk. So they did and

41:12

while they were out, Maurice allegedly

41:15

passed by in his truck and

41:17

didn't acknowledge his son. Okay. This

41:20

is just something they brought up in the article and

41:22

I've never seen Maurice address this claim and he was

41:24

interviewed for this same article. So

41:27

I don't know about its veracity but

41:29

like it's an interesting

41:31

detail for them to add. Yeah like

41:33

Maurice could have just been driving somewhere and

41:35

not paying attention to a group of people

41:38

walking on the side of the road. Yeah or

41:40

on the sidewalk or you know whatever on the

41:42

side of the road. Sure. You know it was

41:44

like downtown. So yeah he could have

41:46

not noticed them. It could have not been him. I mean there

41:49

are all sorts of... Or it could also

41:51

never happen. Also yeah so

41:53

it's just a weird thing to

41:56

say. According to the Fausts, Caden

41:58

did well in their home. He

42:00

was working on getting his GED and he

42:02

started a lawn care business. But

42:05

apparently when he bought new mowers in order

42:07

to expand the business, they were stolen. Um,

42:14

okay. I don't

42:16

know. It's just weird

42:18

to me because the house, the

42:21

house has a fenced in

42:23

backyard and a two car garage. It's

42:25

a very large garage. Like

42:27

where were these mowers? Where were they stolen from?

42:30

How did that happen? Like it just doesn't

42:32

make any sense. It's never addressed

42:34

again in anything else I've read. I

42:37

don't know. There's no proof to any

42:39

of these claims and nobody's going to look into

42:41

it because who the hell cares? But it

42:45

seems to add to the fouls

42:47

just kind of, I don't know, painting

42:50

themselves as better people

42:52

than they are or well, I don't know. I don't know

42:54

anything about the fouls. I don't, but it does

42:56

feel like a self aggrandizement because like,

42:58

cause Chris says when he's kind of

43:00

relaying this little anecdote, he's like with

43:02

Caden, it was always one step forward,

43:04

two steps back. It's

43:08

like, it's just another just

43:10

weird thing to say or just to talk about.

43:12

Like I just, how did that happen? Yeah.

43:15

Okay. But I

43:18

am going to say some nice things about

43:20

the fous before I get into the wildest

43:22

quote from the article. From

43:25

what I've been able to gather about Chris

43:27

Faust from his interview and many Facebook posts

43:30

like he's an active dude. I

43:32

mentioned that he was an air traffic controller. Now

43:36

I couldn't find this out specifically, but being

43:38

that Chris is in his mid forties, I

43:40

believe he's 46 right now. There's

43:42

a good chance that he's actually retired from that job.

43:46

Retirement before 50 is not uncommon for

43:48

air traffic controllers who get into the

43:50

job young. It has

43:52

in terms of federal government retirements,

43:55

it's I think the shortest

43:57

kind of time period that you have to serve.

44:00

in order to get it. Yeah, because

44:02

there's a really high rate of

44:04

burnout. Exactly, right? So I think, you know,

44:07

by this time he's like 45, I think

44:09

he could have already been out. And

44:12

so I bring that up because the impression

44:14

that I get of him is that he's

44:17

a relatively young guy with a lot of

44:19

time on his hands. So he's constantly trying

44:21

to stay busy. He posts

44:23

about going to the gym, tackling

44:25

DIY projects around the house. And

44:27

he apparently has a passion for

44:29

fixing up cars. And

44:32

this really made Kayden a perfect

44:34

companion for him, as

44:36

he had many of the same

44:39

interests and a similar inability to

44:41

stay still. And several Facebook posts

44:43

that are still public, Kayden

44:45

and Chris can be seen doing

44:48

many of these activities together. They

44:50

did a 20 mile bike ride,

44:52

they're working on cars, they're

44:54

lifting weights, like they're doing all

44:57

of these things, right? So

45:00

it genuinely seems

45:02

to me that at least for

45:04

a while, this whole arrangement was

45:06

a good fit. Until?

45:10

Well, you know,

45:12

until Kayden disappeared, right? So

45:15

while Chris enjoys fixing up

45:17

cars, he, for whatever reason,

45:19

especially seems to enjoy Toyotas.

45:22

At the time, he had two four

45:25

runners and a Corolla. Coincidentally,

45:27

Kara also had a four

45:29

runner, which Kayden had to use

45:31

while he lived in Maryland. Now

45:33

this was like a 2002. So it needed some work. I

45:35

mean, it ran, like

45:38

I said, he used it. But Chris

45:40

decided that he and Kayden would make a

45:42

project out of fixing it up. Sounds

45:45

good. Sounds great. So

45:48

according to Kara, she met up with them

45:50

and turned over the car. Now,

45:52

Kayden couldn't afford insurance, he didn't have a

45:54

job at this time. So

45:56

Chris told her that he would just put

45:58

the car in his policy. However,

46:01

he said that in order to do that, the

46:03

car had to be in his name. Since

46:06

Keaton was living with them, Kara's

46:08

like, okay, whatever, makes sense. He can't afford

46:10

his own insurance policy. Like, fine,

46:13

whatever. So she agreed,

46:15

gave the car to Keaton, but allowed Chris

46:17

to put it in his name and on

46:19

his insurance. Keaton and

46:21

Chris added fixing up the forerunner to their

46:23

list of activities and all was well for

46:25

a few months. Before

46:28

I get to December, when things started to change,

46:30

I want to get back to that wild

46:33

quote that I mentioned earlier. Now

46:36

this comes from Amy Faust, Chris's

46:38

wife. She says, quote,

46:40

he felt he didn't deserve what we

46:42

were doing for him. He

46:44

couldn't wrap his head around the fact that two

46:46

people who barely knew him cared about him. He

46:50

looked at us and our family and wondered why

46:52

he couldn't have that. He

46:54

just wanted to start over and have

46:56

a better life, end quote. I

47:00

mean, so if that's something

47:02

that Keaton actually said, then

47:04

that leads me to question

47:08

his family of origin and

47:10

like there might be some issues there

47:12

that could have led to his ODD

47:16

diagnosis or whatever. However,

47:19

she doesn't specifically say that he said that. Yeah,

47:22

you're right. He says he felt he didn't

47:24

deserve, like he couldn't wrap his head. He

47:26

looked at our family and wondered, like, yeah,

47:29

I mean, these are not... Yeah. Did

47:31

he actually say these things or is this something

47:33

that she is saying

47:36

that she thought he was thinking?

47:38

Yeah. I don't know. And

47:41

again, it just goes back to the like

47:43

white savior self aggrandizing thing that really just...

47:46

It doesn't seem genuine. It's just gross to me. And

47:48

I feel like it's weird because she

47:50

says two people who barely knew him.

47:54

But yet he... Chris jumped

47:57

out of his dentist chair or whatever. run

48:00

to the hospital and they hugged when

48:03

they saw each other. Yeah, and

48:05

it's like he didn't run to the hospital because

48:07

Caden was in a car accident and he was

48:09

clinging to life. Like he

48:11

was admitted to be held on,

48:13

you know, a psychiatric hold. Like

48:16

I feel like you could have waited to the end of your

48:18

dentist appointment. And also like if

48:21

if they had that type of relationship

48:23

when he went to the hospital for

48:25

a psych eval, where the fuck

48:27

was he when he went to

48:29

jail? Yeah, well yeah the first time.

48:31

Yeah, I have no idea because yeah when

48:34

when everything happened with the buzz, like

48:36

I don't know. Where was Chris then? I don't know. And

48:40

not that I would expect like the parent of

48:42

your friend to be there, but

48:44

if he's apparently you know a couple months

48:46

later jumping out of a dentist chair, like

48:48

maybe he should have been, I don't know.

48:51

Just seems like slightly odd behavior to all

48:53

of a sudden be

48:55

like, oh we're so tight that

48:58

now I'm gonna go

49:00

run and help this kid. Right, and it's just

49:02

it's so weird and that's why I struggle so much

49:04

with this and you know there's

49:06

more coming up. But it's like

49:08

I really genuinely do feel as

49:10

though Chris cared about Caden and

49:13

really enjoyed his company and really

49:15

like had a lot of good

49:17

times with him, right? And wanted

49:19

to help him sincerely. But then

49:22

he had his wife which is saying all this

49:24

like weird gross shit. Yeah. Like

49:26

I just I have a hard time with it.

49:28

I just can't quite. Was Ethan ever interviewed?

49:31

He was. He actually does

49:34

have a few quotes in this article but they're

49:36

all very like benign. Like yeah, Caden and I

49:38

met in middle school. Like we

49:40

were friends. Yeah, I mean he doesn't say

49:42

anything, you know? It should

49:45

also be mentioned that this article

49:47

in which you know Amy gives

49:49

this quote was said to a

49:51

reporter nine months after a

49:53

teenager vanished while

49:55

in their care. Now

49:58

it's just it's such a weird thing to say. And

50:01

again, Caden had a family who loved

50:03

him. He was not some

50:05

orphan that they took in. The

50:08

whole reason, in fact, why Caden

50:10

didn't have a car already was

50:13

because instead of using his father's extra

50:15

car when he moved back up to

50:17

Pennsylvania, he told his

50:19

parents that they should give it to his

50:21

younger brother Carter because Carter had just gotten

50:23

his driver's license. So he wanted his little

50:25

brother to have the car instead. Yeah,

50:29

not somebody who's

50:31

from a broken, unsupported family.

50:34

Exactly. And yes, his

50:36

relationship with his father is complicated. Like,

50:38

nobody's denying that. We're not trying to

50:41

paint that as a Rosie's situation. Obviously,

50:43

there's something going on there. It's not

50:45

all great. But even

50:49

after the whole fight that ended up

50:51

in jail when he was staying with

50:53

the house, he still regularly went over

50:55

and visited. And they weren't

50:57

estranged after that. No,

50:59

but, you know, the Faust made a

51:01

point of, or at least Krista had

51:03

made a point of saying that his

51:05

father didn't acknowledge his son when it

51:08

drove past. Exactly. It's

51:10

just, I don't know, it's

51:12

wild. And again, like I said,

51:14

you know, most of this stuff

51:17

is coming from this article that was published

51:19

nine months later. And I

51:21

don't know, it's just an interesting way to

51:23

approach this time in all of their lives.

51:27

Yeah, I'm still curious as to what Krista's

51:29

angle was here. Yeah. The

51:32

Faust's angle was. One

51:34

thing that both the Fausts

51:36

and Kaden's family agreed on is

51:38

that at the beginning of December, Kaden did

51:40

not seem to be in a good place. So

51:43

now we're up to December 2022. He's

51:46

only been living with the Fausts for a couple months.

51:49

Apparently his whole lawnmower

51:51

business didn't go

51:54

well, allegedly. It's

51:56

hard to have a lawnmower business in

51:58

December in Pennsylvania. Also true. So

52:00

he had been trying to find a job, but

52:03

again, according to the article, his pending

52:06

charges made that difficult, which I

52:08

don't really know how because he doesn't have

52:10

a felony on his record.

52:13

No, but the arrests would show up on a background

52:15

check. Yeah. But like how many places actually do a

52:17

background check, honestly, when you're a teenager? Not that deep. Right?

52:21

Yeah. But regardless, that was

52:23

the story. He was having trouble because of the

52:25

pending charges. Now, he was eventually

52:27

hired by a moving company, but it wasn't

52:29

a steady schedule, as you can imagine. So

52:33

apparently, and again, this is according to Chris, on

52:35

the days he worked, Kaiden would come home

52:37

and go straight to bed. And

52:39

on his days off, he would often stay up

52:41

all night playing video games with Ethan. All

52:44

this, again, sounds fairly reasonable. You

52:47

know, like you could say, like, yes, a moving company

52:49

is a physically demanding job. Of course, you'd want to

52:51

go straight to bed. But of course, this is also

52:53

a guy who is like constantly physically active. Yeah.

52:57

But whatever. Whatever. We'll take it at face value. Sure. Kara

53:00

said that Kaiden was feeling down during this

53:02

time and told her that he wished she

53:04

had never returned to Pennsylvania. He

53:06

said that he always screwed up, and all

53:08

he wanted to do was play football, something

53:11

he couldn't do at the time because he

53:13

wasn't enrolled in school. So again,

53:16

everything was really heavily weighing

53:19

on him, even though it did

53:21

seem as though things were going pretty well for him

53:23

at the Fausts. You know, he

53:25

and Chris were doing all these things. Like, it was still

53:27

tough, you know? I'm sure his

53:29

relationship with his father and his father's

53:31

fiancé was still strained to some regard,

53:34

even though, you know, it wasn't an estrangement. He

53:36

was going over there. He didn't want to go

53:39

back and live there. He,

53:41

by all accounts, was still close with his mother and

53:43

his siblings, but didn't want to go back to Maryland.

53:47

He'd been kicked out of several schools

53:49

by this point. And at

53:51

this point, is he 18? Yeah, he's 18. Almost 19. So

53:55

his birthday, he turned 19 December 10th of

53:58

2022. just

54:00

really lost at this point

54:02

it sounds like. So he

54:04

turned 19 on December 10th but I actually

54:07

haven't found anything online about what Caden did

54:09

that day like how he celebrated. On the

54:13

11th though Chris posted photos

54:15

of him and Caden working on the

54:17

valves in his 4Runner. Later

54:19

that week Caden and his

54:21

mother spoke on the phone and made plans

54:23

for Christmas. Caden was planning on going down

54:25

to Maryland on Christmas Eve so that he

54:28

could be there Christmas morning with

54:31

his mom and all of his siblings. I

54:34

think I mentioned that Kara

54:36

was remarried so Caden had

54:38

a stepfather and they

54:40

also had a few kids of their own.

54:43

So in addition to

54:45

Caden's two brothers I

54:47

threw her another two maybe

54:50

three younger half siblings

54:52

there as well. So

54:55

it was a big family who was going

54:57

to be getting together for Christmas. They're

54:59

all in Maryland. Yeah they're all in Maryland and

55:02

again only about an hour away so like not

55:04

super far at all. Kara

55:06

also asked Caden what he wanted for Christmas but

55:08

he couldn't decide he apparently kept on going back

55:11

and forth on a few things which is very

55:13

typical. She eventually said that

55:15

she just give him money and he was

55:17

like yep sounds great thank you. On

55:20

Friday December 16th Caden borrowed Chris's car

55:22

and went to the bank to deposit

55:24

his paycheck. Which car? I

55:28

don't know I think it was the Corolla

55:30

it might have been a Camry but it was like the

55:32

sedan. Yeah so it wasn't the

55:34

forerunner because I get I from what I understand

55:36

it was kind of like in pieces at that

55:38

point. So while it

55:41

may have been drivable before I don't think it

55:43

was drivable at that moment in time. So

55:46

he borrowed Chris's car went to the

55:48

bank and deposited his paycheck from the

55:50

moving company. According to a

55:53

gas station employee he also stopped in that

55:55

morning to gas up and buy some snacks.

55:57

So later police you know.

56:00

course looked at his like credit card right you

56:02

know his debit card all that kind of stuff

56:04

and saw the charge for the gas station so

56:06

they went there and asked if

56:09

they had surveillance video thankfully they did

56:12

and according to this employee who was

56:14

there and like watched the video with

56:16

him and it was actually the person

56:19

who rang Caden up that day she

56:21

was like yeah he was totally normal

56:23

and came gassed up, bought snacks, everything

56:25

was fine. The next day

56:27

the fast said that Caden was restless. He

56:30

had dinner with the family but then he wanted to

56:32

go go-kart racing. Chris had

56:34

just taken his epilepsy medication and he said

56:37

he wasn't up to it. Caden

56:39

then decided he was going to go to his boxing

56:42

gym. According to phone records

56:44

Caden called the gym but it was

56:46

apparently closing soon and that was a

56:48

half an hour away so he didn't

56:50

end up going. The gym owner later confirmed

56:52

that he did speak with Caden that evening

56:54

so it wasn't just that there was a

56:56

call made from his phone like the gym

56:58

owner said that it was Caden he spoke

57:00

with. The newspaper article says that

57:03

after that quote, Caden retreated

57:05

to his room on the home second

57:07

floor. The Faust never saw him again

57:09

and quote and

57:12

I wanted to put that in a

57:14

direct quote because it's about to become

57:17

incredibly important. Now

57:19

unfortunately it's going to become incredibly

57:21

important next week. Oh

57:24

cliffhanger. I know. We haven't even gotten

57:27

to his disappearance. I know.

57:29

Blame it on the bus manual but

57:31

like I cannot stop writing

57:33

and I truly

57:36

did not mean for this to be a second

57:38

two-parter. I don't like to do two two-parters in

57:40

a row because we had the Brianna Meehan case

57:42

before this but there's

57:45

just so much going on here and

57:47

we are about to

57:49

get to his actual disappearance and

57:51

the issue that we have with some

57:54

of these recent cases and I was kind of talking

57:56

to you a little bit about this before the show

57:58

and even though I didn't tell you

58:00

anything about the case, I was saying that

58:02

this is a recent case and that the

58:04

issue that we run into is that there's

58:07

so much stuff

58:09

on social media. So there are people

58:12

who are posting things. I've already

58:14

mentioned several of Kara and Chris's

58:16

Facebook posts. There's even

58:18

more after that that there are people

58:21

posting theories, there are people making accusations.

58:23

There's a lot going on that I

58:25

think that we need to kind of

58:27

wade through. And

58:30

there's probably not a whole

58:32

lot coming from

58:34

police. Exactly, because it is such

58:36

a new investigation. So

58:38

you're right, there really isn't

58:41

a ton coming from police.

58:43

I can give you the

58:46

basic facts of the beginning of the investigation,

58:48

which we of course will get into. But

58:51

most of it, after

58:53

the first month, they're really keeping

58:55

to themselves in terms of leads

58:57

and avenues of investigation. So yes,

59:00

we will be

59:02

back next week. I'm so sorry

59:04

to talk about

59:06

Caden Black's disappearance and the

59:09

aftermath and the investigation. Now,

59:11

as always, for those of

59:13

you who have

59:16

joined us over on Patreon or

59:18

Apple podcasts on a

59:20

subscription basis, you will be able

59:22

to get this second episode up

59:25

early and ad free. So I'm going to be

59:28

able to post the two of them basically together

59:30

so you won't have to wait a week. But

59:33

everyone else, this will

59:35

be our episode next week. One

59:38

note before we go, Caden's family has

59:40

a GoFundMe to hire a private investigator.

59:43

We'll post the link in our show notes.

59:45

So please take a look and donate if

59:47

you're able or if you're not, please just

59:49

share on your social media channels. Thank

59:55

you. He

1:00:11

is a biracial male with brown hair and brown eyes. He

1:00:20

was approximately 5 foot 10 and 160 pounds when he

1:00:22

went missing. Keaton

1:00:25

was 19 when he went missing. He would be 20

1:00:28

today. Anyone with

1:00:30

information regarding Keaton Black's disappearance is asked

1:00:32

to call the Lower Windsor Township Police

1:00:34

Department at 717-244-8055 or Crime Stoppers of

1:00:36

Pennsylvania at 1-800-LOST. You

1:00:46

can also submit a

1:00:48

tip anonymously online at

1:00:51

york.crimewatchpa.com/ Lower Windsor TWPPD.

1:00:55

You can see all the sources for this episode

1:00:58

along with photos and videos at our website and

1:01:00

thentheyweregone.com. And be sure to

1:01:02

follow us on social and then they

1:01:04

were gone pod on Facebook and at

1:01:06

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1:01:09

you like what we're doing, please subscribe and consider

1:01:11

leaving a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts. It

1:01:14

will help new listeners find us. And

1:01:16

the more people that listen, the more chances we have

1:01:18

of bringing someone home. And we'll

1:01:20

see you here next week or right

1:01:22

now for part 2 of

1:01:25

Keaton Black. See you then. And

1:01:27

Then They Were Gone is hosted by Kona Gallagher

1:01:30

and Deethinsling. All research, writing and editing is done

1:01:32

by me, Kona Gallagher. B

1:01:34

Music is The Stork by Ketsa. Additional

1:01:36

music is provided by Kai Engel. And

1:01:39

Then They Were Gone is a little monster production.

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