Man charged with lying in missing mom case
Woman was last seen July 25; her son was found alone outside
A self-proclaimed witch who claims he was one of the last people to see missing mom Leila Cavett has been charged with lying to federal officers.
Shanon Demar Ryan, 38, of Muscle Shoals, Ala., was arrested by federal agents on Saturday, according to court records. He’s being held in the Broward jail without bond.
Cavett, 21, was last seen on July 25 after traveling from Georgia to Fort Lauderdale. Her 2-year-old son Kamdyn was found wandering the streets alone in Miramar the following day.
On his Facebook page, Ryan claims to be a witch, spiritual adviser, teacher and CEO and seeks to set straight the uninformed about witches and their motives.
“Stop thinking like muggles,” he wrote. “A witch putting a hex on someone does not mean that person is going to die or be killed. Why would a Witch kill anyone they want to suffer? There is no suffering in death, only the living suffer. You need flesh, bones and a beating heart in order to feel pain.”
“A Witch is not a spiritual assassin,” he added. “We do not take death contracts. Death has already contracted us all, unless you got an extension.”
Ryan has not been charged with kidnapping or harming the missing mom, and he has proclaimed his innocence on social media.
The cases has generated interest across the country as the FBI tries to retrace Cavett’s steps through surveillance footage and cellphone tower data. Agents pleaded Friday for more tips from the public, but the agency refused Sunday to say any more about Ryan’s arrest, include what is accused of lying about.
Ryan’s recent Facebook activity includes a number of posts discussing the case in vague and sometimes mysterious ways. Many of the posts allude to witchcraft and new age spirituality, but some address the FBI and their apparent investigation into Cavett and Ryan’s alleged connection to her.
The young mom is 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds. She has “Kamdyn” tattooed on her right inner arm and a “Jesus fish” tattooed on her right wrist, according to her family.
Ryan’s Facebook profile lists him as the owner and founder of Magnetic Kundalini, a business with an Alabama phone number, described on its page as “witchcraft, knowledge of self, kemetic kundalini and chakra meditation, kemetic science, health, wellness, fitness, mentorship.”
A phone number listed on the page was disconnected Sunday.
Defined broadly, witchcraft is a practice of magical skills, spells, and abilities with many variations depending on a culture or society. The Old Testament contains laws against it. Before the Age of Enlightenment, witch hunts and witch trials pervaded in societies gripped in fear.
On Aug. 6, Ryan posted two photos, apparently of police officers or federal agents in plainclothes searching a silver Lexus sedan. In one of the photos, a truck, matching the description of Cavett’s vehicle provided by Hollywood Police, is seen in the background with a door open.
On social media, Ryan said he has been questioned by police who, he said, don’t have anything to go on.
In some cases, he seems to be goading the FBI, telling agents — and anyone else who seems to think he has something to do with Cavett’s disappearance — where they can find him.
“If you think I am guilty, come get me,” he said in the Facebook Live post on Aug. 13. “Know what energy you are playing with.”
A week earlier, Ryan claimed to be in Tennessee and on his way back to Florida when he posted a 51-minute video on YouTube. In the video, he claims he took Cavett into his home when he was living in Alabama. He described her as a young woman with risky behavior who played men and used her son as a shield from them. He said it was common for her to go off with strangers.
Ryan says he and Cavett reconnected recently when she decided to come to Florida. He says that when she arrived they smoked marijuana, went to The Cheesecake Factory and then drove around. He says a car pulled up and someone in the vehicle asked her if she partied. Ryan says Cavett left with the people in the car.
In the video, Ryan appears very animated. At times he rocks back and forth. Other times he flails his arms. On occasion he punctuates each word vividly.
He says he knows the FBI is investigating him. “I know they are trying to make a connection of me to her,” he says in the video. “You are going to find you wasted your mother [expletive deleted] time when you could have been looking for her.”
Ryan then attempts to hold many people to task including Cavett’s family and an army of followers on social media who have joined Facebook groups in an attempt to help find the missing mom.
He questions how Cavett could really be missing when she was largely considered homeless and why people didn’t want to help her then.
“You don’t see the work I do every day,” he says. “You don’t see the energy I put in.”
In the same video, Ryan says that he was the last person to see Cavett and that he is being made to look guilty by others on social media because of his past criminal history. Court records show he was convicted of a 2012 burglary in Alabama. He also says in the video that he sold drugs when he was younger.
A relative of Ryan’s, who didn’t want to be identified, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that Ryan had been in trouble with the law over property and drug offenses years ago. The relative said Ryan worked as a traveling psychic.
Cavett’s family appeared on the “Dr. Phil” TV show last week. Her brother Curtis Cavett said they have no new information about his sister’s whereabouts. He said she was living with family in Georgia and that she had no ties to Florida, making her journey there and disappearance even more of a mystery.
Cavett’s family and Javaron Buckley, an Illinois attorney trying to help the Cavett family locate her, did not respond to calls and Facebook messages Sunday.