“He’s everything to her. Kamdyn is her life, that’s the love of her live. She’s never going to leave him, never.”
-Curtis Cavett, Leila's Brother
It was the 26th of July 2020. 911 received a call about an abandoned child found between 8am and 8.30 am in Miramar, Florida, United States. A woman found him wandering around on his own outside an apartment complex. He was wearing a diaper and tshirt and had no shoes on. When police arrived, they took a photo of the child and posted his photo online to try to identify him. They determined that the child was two year old Kamdyn Cavett, the son of twenty one year old Leila Cavett.
Leila did not live in Florida, she was from Alabama but lived in Georgia, and her family did not know why she was in Florida. The only people she knew in Florida were distant relatives in the Tampa area.
Police discovered that Leila was driving a white GMC 3500 pickup truck. She drove the pickup from Georgia to Florida and arrived in Florida on the 25th of July with Kamdyn and spent time in Hollywood, Miramar and Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Leila Cavett and Kamdyn
One day after Kamdyn was found, a license plate reader check showed that the pickup was last at the Walmart parking lot at the intersection of State Road 7 and Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood on the 27th of July. Police set up surveillance and monitored the car and on the 28th of July, a man approached the pickup with keys in his hand. There was no sign of Leila.
Police spoke to the man. His name was Shannon Demar Ryan. Shannon was from Alabama and described himself as a witch and a spiritual advisor.
Shannon Demar Ryan
Shannon told police that he knew Leila. They met in January 2019. According to a police criminal complaint filed, Shannon told police that Leila was in Florida for a number of reasons, one of which was to sell him her pickup truck. He met her on the 25th of July at 2.30pm at RaceTrac gas station, at 5800 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. He purchased the pickup truck from her for $3000 cash.
According to the complaint, Shannon told police that he went to Fort Lauderdale Beach with Leila and Kamdyn that same day. They drove there in his 2004 Gold Lexus ES 330. They left the pickup truck at the gas station and when they returned to the gas station, he parked his Gold Lexus at the pumps. He told police that on the 26th of July, Leila and Kamdyn got a lift from several black males driving a dark sedan at around 2.30am. He did not know who the men were and believed Leila had just met them. He said that one of the men in the vehicle asked Leila if she partied and she got into the car with them and took Kamdyn with her. That was the last time Shannon saw Leila and he did not know where she went with the men.
Police obtained video footage from the RaceTrac gas station. The surveillance did not show Shannon's car parked at the pumps and it did not show Leila leaving in a dark sedan. According to the criminal complaint, the footage showed what appeared to be Shannon's car leaving the gas station at 8.15am on the 26th of July. It returned at 8.38am.
Surveillance Footage of Leila Caveat and Kamdyn
Surveillance footage obtained from the area where Kamdyn was found alone, showed a vehicle that looked like Shannon's Gold Lexus directly in front of the apartment complex where Kamdyn was found, just a few minutes before he was found. His car had a damaged bumper so it was easy to identify. His phone records also placed him in the area.
Police believe that Shannon left the RaceTrac gas station at 8.15am on the morning of the 26th of July, dropped Kamdyn off at the apartment complex where he was found alone, and returned to the RaceTrac at 8.38am. This was around the same time that Kamdyn was found at the apartment complex and the drive itself is a short one, the RaceTrac gas station is just three miles from the apartment complex. But they do not know where Leila was at this time.
That same day, the 26th of July, Shannon purchased a number of items using someone else's debit card in RaceTrac and Walmart. The Walmart was in the same shopping center as the RaceTrac gas station.
The criminal complaint outlines that surveillance footage from Walmart, showed Shannon purchasing a number of items at 9.42 am the morning of the 26th of July. The items included Hefty Strong 39 gallon extra large trash drawstring bags and two boxes of extra strength carpet odor eliminator. He returned to that same Walmart just fifteen minutes later and purchased a roll of advanced strength duct tape.
On the 9th of August 2020, Shannon posted a video on his Facebook account. In the video, he said that he covered one of Leila's windows in the pickup with a garbage bag as it was broken and damaged. But surveillance footage police had showed there was no damage to any of the windows in Leila's pickup when the pickup was at RaceTrac. However a subsequent search of the pickup when it was later found revealed the driver's side window was broken and the driver's side visor was bent. It has not yet been determined exactly when or where the window was broken.
On his Facebook video, the Sun reported that Shannon said:
"If you think I am guilty, come get me. Know what energy you are playing with. I know they are trying to make a connection of me to her. You are going to find you wasted your motherf***ing time when you could have been looking for her."
Police found shovels with red substance on them. They spoke to Shannon's friend. He told them that on the 26th of July, Shannon asked him if he would like to buy the pickup for $1000. He told him a girl drove the pickup from Georgia to Florida.
When police searched Shannon's Lexus, they found a half empty container of all purpose cleaner with bleach and garbage bags, and a white powdery substance under the front passenger seat.
Police spoke to the employees at RaceTrac and they told police that they saw Shannon using the dumpster at the RaceTrac. One of the employees saw women's clothing, including a pair of floral pants that police had a picture of Leila wearing, and children's toys inside the dumpster. Surveillance footage showed Shannon parking in front of the dumpster at RaceTrac on the 26th of July.
Police looked through Shannon's messages and Google searches on his phone. They discovered that on the 26th of July, Google searches were carried out on his phone that included one at 12.01 am " What time does commercial garbage pickup for Hollywood, Florida" and at 1.45 am "Does bleach and alcohol make chloroform."
There has been no activity on Leila's social media accounts after the 26th of July. She was very active on them prior to that date.
Shannon was arrested and charged with kidnapping Kamdyn with the intent of collecting a ransom, reward or other benefit and lying to a federal officer. Shannon denies any involvement in the disappearance of Leila. He confirmed that he committed crimes in the past but has now transformed into the God he is today. Shannon told the FBI that he was in the area to fix a nail in his tire.
Leila's family looked through her social media accounts and believe that she may have been in Florida to meet a man that she met through an online dating website.
The FBI searched the Monarch Hill Landfill in northern Broward as part of their investigation. Leila's mother, Tina Kirby, told Fox News that the FBI informed her that Leila is dead. They wanted her DNA to analyze what they believed was blood found on shovels. The investigation is ongoing.
Leila is 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds. She has two distinctive tattoos - one of her son's name Kamdyn tattooed on her right inner arm and a Jesus fish tattooed on her right wrist.
Authorities ask that anyone with any information about Leila's whereabouts or disappearance call Broward Crime Stoppers at (954) 493-TIPS. There is a reward of up to $10,000 for information which will lead authorities to the location of Leila.
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"The criminal justice system will take a hard look at what happened to Matthew Eappen. It is up to the rest of us to take an even harder look at who is minding our children."
- Eileen McNamara, the Boston Globe
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- Sandra Pupatello
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