Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple or Spotify.
In 2019 15-year-old Riley Crossman was a freshman at Berkeley Springs High School in the small town of Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, a town near the border of Maryland & Pennsylvania with a population of less than 1,000. Her parents, Lance Crossman & Chantel Oakley, divorced sometime around 2014 & she split her time between her dad & stepmom’s house & her mom’s house at 15 Greenway Drive.
Riley suddenly went missing sometime between the night of Tuesday, May 7 & Wednesday, May 8, 2019 when she was staying in the four-bedroom house that she shared with her mom, Chantel Oakley, her 9 & 13-year-old brothers, as well as Chantel’s boyfriend of a year & a half, 41-year-old Andrew “Andy” McCauley.
At the time, Chantel was working two jobs to make ends meet; one in a full-time position at a solar company, the other part-time at a restaurant. Since Chantel hadn’t been feeling well on Tuesday afternoon, May 7, 2019, she left her full-time job early so she could lay down for a nap before she began her evening shift. Unable to find a co-worker to cover her shift, sick or not, she planned to go in.
Knowing how reliable Riley was, she sent her a text, asking if she could wake her up when she got home from school that day. At 3:30 pm, Riley did just that & as Chantel went to get ready for work, she watched as Riley headed toward her bedroom & this was the last time she ever saw her daughter alive.
After Chantel left for work, Riley continued on with her evening as usual. She was home with Andy, her two younger brothers as well as her maternal grandmother, who was at the house until about 7 pm. The last communication Chantel had with Riley was at 8:21 pm when she texted her about a high school volleyball game.
At about 10:30 pm, when Chantel was pulling into their driveway from work that night, she found it odd to see that all of the lights of the main level of the house were on, but when she came in, only the light above the sink was on, something she felt was very strange.
She found Andy & her two boys asleep in the living room, but when she spoke to Andy, he seemed very much awake as if he’d only been pretending to sleep. Thinking little of the situation & feeling exhausted from a long day of work on top of not feeling well, Chantel headed up to bed. Once upstairs, she noticed that Riley’s bedroom door was closed, but the light was on. Although she planned to pop her head in to say goodnight, she ended up sitting on her bed & quickly falling asleep.
Chantel woke up the next morning with a start, realizing that she’d forgotten to set an alarm. Fearful that she’d overslept & that her boys would yet again be late for school, she immediately checked the time on her cell phone & realized that it was 7:17 am & she hadn’t overslept. Since she had been working two jobs paired with the fact that she was an extremely heavy sleeper, her sons had many tardies that year & she didn’t want them to be late again.
When she peeked into Riley’s room, she saw that she wasn’t there & although she was surprised that Riley hadn’t come into her room to say goodbye as she normally did, she just assumed she’d already left for school. Since Berkeley Spring High School is situated just across the street from where they lived, Riley walked to school every day.
School started at 7:45 am so Chantel assumed that Riley had left early that morning to give herself time to socialize before classes started. Riley’s boyfriend of nine months, Haydn Lacy, was going on a field trip to Washington D.C. that day, so it’s likely she wanted to talk to him before he left.
Chantel drove her sons to school & when she got back, despite the fact that Andy had left for work much earlier that morning, she noticed that he’d left his cell phone at home. When she picked it up, she came across texts & phone calls to their former employer & landlord, Don Morgan, something she found as strange since they weren’t on good terms with him. Not only had Andy sent him five text messages, but he also called him twelve times in the early morning hours of that Wednesday. One of the texts read, Was going to see if I could stay for a few hours, but Don hadn’t responded.
When Chantel later confronted Andy about texting Don, he initially denied doing so until she told him that she had seen the texts & phone calls herself. This was when he told her that he had been out with drugs on him & he wanted to stop at Don’s house so the cops didn’t catch him.
The day continued on as usual until about 3:30 pm when Chantel texted her mom to see if Riley was home. When she told her no, Chantel immediately sent Riley a text, asking her where she was, but she noticed that the message didn’t deliver. When she tried calling her, it went straight to voice mail & when she sent a second text, it also went undelivered.
Chantel wondered if Riley possibly forgot to mention having a dance rehearsal after school so she asked her mom if she could walk across to the high school to see if Riley was there. When Chantel heard back from her mom that Riley wasn’t there, she asked her sons to check her bedroom & they indicated that her school backpack was there. When Chantel left work at 5 pm to drive to the school to look for her daughter, as she pulled in, Haydn was in the parking lot, having just gotten back from his field trip.
Haydn explained that he hadn’t heard from Riley throughout that day, but he had been on a video call with her the night before. Their call began at 10:29 pm & oftentimes, they stayed on FaceTime for many hours each night, sometimes through the entirety of the night, even when they were sleeping. However, their call ended up disconnecting two hours later at 12:30 am that Wednesday morning, May 8, 2019 after Haydn had fallen asleep. Before this happened, he heard Andy in Riley’s room, asking her to do the dishes for money.
About an hour & a half before the call ended, but after Haydn had fallen asleep, Riley sent him a text message at 11:01 pm saying, Andy is in my room. Shhh, don’t say anything about it so he can hear everything. About fifteen minutes later she sent her last text at 11:17 pm saying, I’m scared, babe. These messages had been sent after Chantel had gotten home from work & fallen asleep herself.
Haydn understood Riley’s text message to mean that he shouldn’t unmute himself on their FaceTime call since Andy was in her room & would be able to hear what he said. When he later tried to get ahold of her, he wasn’t able to get through. As Wednesday progressed & Haydn hadn’t heard from Riley, he started to worry since this was very much out of the ordinary as they normally texted each other throughout the day.
Chantel continued to check around the school for her daughter, but when there was still no sign of her, she headed home, hoping that Riley would be there by then. When she got home & went into her daughter’s room, she recalls feeling both angry & scared; it was so unlike Riley to go off without checking in. It wasn’t until 6 pm when Chantel got an automated text message from the school informing her that Riley had been absent that day. This was when her anger turned into a full-blown panic.
At 6:04 pm, Chantel contacted the Morgan County Sheriff’s Department to report her daughter missing. She then contacted Riley’s father, Lance Crossman, who lived about 25 minutes away. Lance didn’t answer the first call since he was tied up at an awards banquet for work, but when Chantel called a second time, he knew something must be going on so he answered. As soon as Lance was told that Riley was missing, he immediately drove to Berkeley Springs.
Lance, along with other family & friends, drove around town, looking for his daughter, all the while trying to stay calm. He hoped & prayed that he would find Riley at the park & she would have a reasonable explanation as to where she had been & why she hadn’t gone to school that day. He continued to call & text her, neither of which were going through.
Lance stopped to talk to other teens around town, hoping they had heard from Riley & one person reported seeing her walking nearby. However, this sighting has not been verified.
In the meantime, the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office arrived at Chantel’s house & began their investigation. Several volunteer searches were organized to cover ground searches throughout the area. In the meantime, the family was frantic, unable to sleep or eat.
Since authorities weren’t certain if they were dealing with an abduction & because there were no leads on any vehicles, an Amber Alert wasn’t issued. Since Riley didn’t yet have her learner’s driving permit, she had no access to a car & Chantel & Lance were insistent that she would absolutely not have run away.
Lance described his daughter as a very gentle girl who would never want to worry or hurt anyone. Her information was spread as much as possible so the public could assist in finding her. She is described as being 5’6”, weighing 125# with blue eyes & blond hair. Since authorities weren’t sure if she was abducted by someone who then forced her to change her appearance, the family urged the public to also look for girls with all hair colors.
When law enforcement asked Chantel if they could search Riley’s room on Thursday, they found her backpack, wallet, money, school ID card & the glasses that she used to see which reinforced that she had not run away from home. However, Chanel noted that the room wasn’t exactly how she had found it on Wednesday morning when she’d gone into Riley’s room to check her appearance in the full-length mirror before she left for work. Specifically, Riley’s glasses were positioned on the floor in a place that Chantel would have stepped on them had they been there.
Concerning physical evidence was taken from her room which included a pillow, a blanket & a Victoria’s secret ribbon, all of which contained visible bloodstains. When tested, they proved to be Riley’s blood, some of which were mixed with saliva. Based on the staining to her pillow, it was likely she had been bleeding from her nose & mouth which painted a picture of Riley’s face being forced into her pillow, possibly to suffocate her while muffling her screams.
Since Chantel’s mom left her house at about 7 pm on Tuesday evening, Andy would have been the last adult to have seen Riley, so investigators brought him in for an interview on Friday, May 10. He indicated that Riley had been in her room when he fell asleep on Tuesday night & he last saw her sometime between 9-10 pm. He went on to say that his friend had picked him up early Wednesday morning, May 8 & they’d driven to the Red Hill subdivision for construction work.
As Andy continued to recount his day, officers quickly noted multiple inconsistencies in his story. He initially claimed that he never left the worksite that day without permission to drive a work truck. Although he doesn’t have a driver’s license & typically does not drive, he changed his story to say that he had actually left the job site. He claimed that he lied because he’d gone to the Eagle Plaza Store to buy drugs, however, he was unable to name the individuals he’d purchased the drugs from & said he didn’t know how to get in touch with them.
Andy went on to say that he actually took the work truck back to his house to get some drugs for himself & his co-worker & after about 30 minutes at the house, he headed back to the jobsite. However, according to witness statements, Andy had cocaine on him when he was picked up for work that morning, so he wouldn’t have had any reason to go back home to get more.
When investigators spoke with Andy’s co-worker, Johnnie Walter, he indicated that he picked Andy up at 5:30 am that morning in a green Dodge Ram King Cab pickup truck. Although most mornings Andy was difficult to wake up in time to be picked up for work, that morning Andy actually called Johnnie more than thirty minutes before he was typically picked up. He told Johnnie that he was ready to go, something he had never done before.
When they left one job sight for another, Andy took three heavy-duty contracting grade trash bags, saying he needed them for another job. He then snorted cocaine & left by himself in the green pickup truck shortly after 9 am, saying he was going to meet a girl. This was the first time had ever borrowed the truck from Johnnie.
About an hour later, at 10 am, Chantel had been at work when she received a phone call from Andy’s ex-girlfriend & the mother of his two children, Denise Deaver. She explained that when she drove past their house, she noticed a green truck parked oddly on her property, backed in between the house & a small shed on the property.
When Andy still hadn’t returned to the jobsite by noon, his contractor, Howard Ruark, called to see where he was. It wasn’t until sometime between 2-2:30 pm when Andy finally got back to work after being gone for 4 hours & 40 minutes, yet he told authorities he had only been gone for two hours.
When Johnnie looked at the truck, he noticed that a bucket of drywall had spilled in the bed of the truck. Andy said it tipped over because he had been driving like a maniac & whipping turns. Although he initially said he was going to meet a girl in Spring Mills when he left the job site at 9 am, he told Johnnie that he ended up driving to Falling Waters instead.
On May 12, law enforcement contacted Brandy Eggeman, a certified human remains detection dog handler, for her assistance in the investigation. When she examined the green pickup truck three days later, on May 15, her dog, Rock, alerted to an odor of human decomposition which signified the presence of blood, tissue or bone, in the bed of the truck, specifically under the utility toolbox.
The very next day on May 16, eight days after Riley was reported missing, based on the routes that Andy had driven on Wednesday, May 8, officers from the Division of Natural Resources found Riley’s decomposed body on an embankment near a road in rural Berkeley County in an area known as Sleepy Creek Mountain.
When investigators canvassed area businesses & homes for surveillance video, they noted the green truck that Andy had driven on the day in question. It could be seen going from the job site in Hedgesville to Berkeley Springs, then along the back roads to where Riley’s body was ultimately found. It was headed to the location off Tuscarora Pike near the top of a mountain in Berkeley Springs at 12:26 pm & was then seen coming back twenty-three minutes later at 12:49 pm.
Lying near her body, officers found two roofing screws that matched the screws that were found in the green truck as well as in Andy McCauley’s tool belt. There was a chalky white substance on Riley’s remains as well as on the foliage around her that was consistent with the drywall mud that had spilled in the bed of the truck. When tested, it proved to have the same chemical composition from what was in the truck.
Three contractor-grade trash bags were found at the scene, two that were uphill while one was partially wrapped around Riley’s arm. At least one of the bags contained some of Riley’s clothing. Riley was wearing one shoe while the other was found in the trash bag. She also wore a shirt with a native American print, no bra, red underwear & blue denim shorts that were unbuttoned & unzipped.
According to Chantel, the shorts her daughter wore at the time of her death were something she would have never chosen herself since she hated the feel of denim & preferred more comfortable clothing. The medical examiner noted that her underwear & shorts had been pulled unusually high, exposing her vaginal area.
Due to the extensive degree of decomposition, Riley’s remains were identified using dental records of the recent orthodontic spacers that she’d gotten only a week before she went missing in preparation for having braces put on.
After Riley’s body was found, investigators spoke with Deborah Clavette, a woman who lives near Sleepy Creek Mountain. She indicated that at about noon on May 8, 2019, the day that Riley was later reported missing, she saw a man matching Andy’s description sitting near the location where Riley’s remains were found with an older model Dodge Ram truck that also matched the truck he had been driving that day.
According to Deborah, the emergency flashers of the truck were engaged & when she drove up, she slowed down assuming that the man needed help. As she thought to ask him if he needed assistance, he waved her by & turned his head as if he didn’t want to be seen, but she noticed that he had stringy hair.
When authorities had spoken with Andy prior to finding Riley’s body, he initially denied leaving the house in the early hours of Wednesday, May 8, but he later changed his story & said that he left home on foot to buy drugs. His Facebook GPS coordinates from his phone confirmed this story as well as the person who sold him the drugs who indicated that he had been out on the streets between about 1:30-4 am on Wednesday morning.
When Andy voluntarily gave his phone to investigators, they noted that he deleted Facebook Messenger texts, including texts he had sent to Riley. Riley’s phone, which has never been found, went off, died or was placed in airplane mode shortly after 3:13 am on Wednesday morning. The last activity from her phone was at 5:40 am which was a FaceTime that Haydn didn’t answer.
Phone records also proved that Andy called Riley’s cellphone three times on May 7 between 3-4 am, 24 hours before it vanished from the network, but dialed *67 to block his number. After she was reported missing, he made no attempts to contact her phone again.
According to Riley’s autopsy, due to the degree of decomposition & animal scavenging, her body had likely been exposed to the elements for several days before it was found. Because of the missing soft tissue on her body, the medical examiner was unable to determine if Riley had been sexually assaulted nor had they been able to rule out strangulation or asphyxiation as a cause of death. Because of this, her cause of death was unspecified while her manner of death was homicide.
On the same day that Riley’s body was found, 41-year-old Andy McCauley was taken into custody, charged with first-degree murder, concealment of a body & death of a child by child abuse & held without bond. According to investigators, he had been a person of interest since day one.
During the trial, which began in April 2021, Andy did not take the stand in his own defense. The prosecution believe that he went into Riley’s room sometime during the night or early morning hours of May 7 or 8, 2019, likely for sexual reasons, & suffocated her to death with a pillow. Because her body had decomposed to the extent that her remains were skeletonized, none of this could be proven, but evidence strongly indicates that this happened.
According to phone records, Riley began texting Haydn about Andy being in her room at 11:01 pm & then again at 11:17 pm when she said that she was scared; this was 30-45 minutes after Chantel had gotten home from work & had fallen asleep. The FaceTime call was disconnected at 12:30 am & Riley’s phone disappeared from the network at 3:13 am until it placed a FaceTime call to Haydn at 5:40 am which he didn’t answer.
Because his ex-girlfriend, Denise Deaver, called Chantel at 10 am on Wednesday morning to let her know that a green truck was parked between the house & the small shed, it’s possible that Andy had either concealed her body in her bedroom or moved her remains to the shed until he was able to go back, wrap her in trash bags & dumped her remains over an embankment.
On October 5, 2021 after four hours of deliberation over the course of two days, jurors came back with a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder, death of a child by a custodian by child abuse & concealment of a body. On November 4, 2021 Andy was sentenced to two life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.
During her victim impact statement, Chantel described her daughter as the most amazing person anyone could know. She wanted Andy to have the harshest punishment possible for throwing her little girl away like a piece of trash. She went on to say, He left her there for nine days as we agonized.. Watching our misery, our torment. He’s the only one that can tell us what happened to our daughter. Chantel listed all of the things that Riley would never be able to do; graduate from high school, get married & have a family of her own.
This case highlights the importance of taking care in who you allow into your home & into your children’s lives. At 15-years-old, Riley should have only been worried about school, friends, plans for the weekend & her next phase of life. Instead, her life was taken by someone who should have protected her, someone who lived in her home & someone her family trusted.
Cases like this force us to confront the hard truth that sometimes the most dangerous place for a person isn’t in a dark alley or a stranger’s car, but inside their own home.
References:
- CBS Austin: Body of missing teen found, mother’s boyfriend charged
- Court TV: WV V. Andy McCauley: Teen killed murder trial – Haydn Lacy
- Court TV: Teen killed murder trial: Day 4
- Court TV: WV V. Andy McCauley: Teen killed murder trial: Chantel Oakley
- MetroNews: McCauley jury hears phone call, learns more about discovery of victim’s body
- MetroNews: McCauley kept lying about death of girlfriend’s daughter, leading to murder conviction
- Justia U.S. Law: Stage v. McCauley
- Oxygen True Crime: Teen texts ‘I’m scared’ when mother’s boyfriend enters her room, shortly before authorities say he killed her
- Herald-Mail Media: Man’s case in WVa’s teen’s death proceeds to circuit court
- Criminal Murder Complaint
- CBS News: West Virginia man convicted of killing his girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter
- CBS News: West Virginia man gets life sentence for killing girlfriend’s daughter
- The Panhandle News Network: Prosecutor addresses rumors about who else could have been responsible as McCauley is sentenced to life in prison without parole
- NBC News: Family desperately searching for missing West Virginia teen Riley Crossman
- YouTube: That Chapter: The evil monster that came into her bedroom
