Self-described ‘witch’ faces new charges in missing case
A self-described “witch” who has been locked away on federal charges since August now faces a new state charge in Broward County.
Shannon Ryan, the 40-yearold self-proclaimed witch who was implicated in the disappearance of still-missing mom Leila Cavett, faces a state child neglect charge. Ryan was being held in the Broward Main Jail on Wednesday.
At Ryan’s court appearance Thursday, the judge set bond at $100,000 for the child neglect charge. It stems from Cavett’s 2-year-old son, who was found wandering alone and barefoot outside an apartment complex in Miramar on July 26, where authorities believe Ryan abandoned him. The boy was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a dirty diaper.
There’s been no sign of Cavett for nearly nine months. In July, the 21-year-old Georgia woman traveled to Florida, planning to work for Ryan. She was last seen near Ryan’s gold Lexus at a gas station in Hollywood, federal investigators say. After that, she vanished.
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed the legal case against Ryan, who was supposed to be arraigned Monday. For reasons that are not entirely clear, a judge dismissed the federal complaint against him on Wednesday.
But he did not walk away a free man.
Ryan is still booked into the Broward County jail. His arrest paperwork initially suggested he was under a U.S. Marshal’s hold, indicating he may face legal trouble in another state. Later Wednesday, the charge of child neglect appeared online.
The warrant for Ryan’s recent arrest on the child neglect charge is sealed due to the ongoing criminal investigation against him, said Miramar Police spokeswoman Tania Rues.
Ryan was first arrested in August after he goaded author
ties on social media, telling them to come get him. He initially faced charges of lying to authorities, and a federal kidnapping charge followed.
In recent months, no family or friends have been contacted to say Cavett is OK after her child was found abandoned in a parking lot of an apartment complex in Miramar one steamy July morning. Cavett’s mother, Tina Kirby, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel she was awaiting a call from the FBI Wednesday night and couldn’t talk until after she spoke with the authorities.
Last year, she told the Sun Sentinel she fears her daughter is dead.
Federal investigators started searching a Broward County landfill for any clues in Cavett’s disappearance in October.
She was last known to be alive on July 25, the day she arrived in South Florida. Authorities say she met Ryan at a RaceTrac gas station in Hollywood and then moved her car to a nearby Walmart.
The following morning Cavett’s child was found in a Miramar parking lot by someone who had just returned from a quick run to grab some coffee creamer. Police frantically appealed to the community to help find the family of the curly-haired 2-year-old boy.
The story of the missing mother drew headlines in July as investigators tried to solve the mystery of what happened to her. A social media post about the wandering boy went viral, making its way to Cavett’s family in Alabama. They were shocked to learn that Cavett had packed up from Georgia and moved to Florida.