Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And before we jump in today,

I have a quick favorite to ask. It's something we haven't asked in a long time. But if you're

listening on Apple Podcasts, will you please leave us a five star review? I have this crazy,

like personal goal. I want to get to 100,000 five star reviews. And I know that sounds crazy,

but we're actually pretty close. I've only seen one other podcast that's gone over 100,000.

And if you guys like me and you just want to like make me feel good, honestly, that's pretty much

all it's for. I would appreciate it so, so much. It's just a goal that I've set and I've been waiting

and watching. And I thought I should just ask you guys for, you know, but I want that. It can be our

half birthday present. Yeah, let it be. With that request, let's get on to our story.

And today is a story of three separate cases that have been intertwined over the years.

Our story first starts back in May of 2007. On May 4th, a young 17 year old girl named Cara is

heading off for a normal day of school. Now, her mom offered to drive her, but Cara said, I'm going

to walk. I want to smoke a cigarette and I want to like do it by myself. And Cara's mom and her

stepdad didn't approve of her smoking, but they felt like their control over Cara and her decisions

were becoming less and less as she got older. And as she got older, she was just asserting her

independence more than just smoking. She'd been doing a lot of things recently that they didn't

approve of. They said that her attitude had really changed after she started dating this guy

from her school named Kyler. He had since dropped out and they felt like he was driving a wedge

between Cara and the family, which as we've talked about many times before is something that is

one of the first signs of domestic abuse. Cara's family said she became more isolated from them,

started skipping school regularly. On her 16th birthday, she'd like run away for a night.

And not extremely long, again, just one night, but it was long enough for her parents to call

...